Strengthening Think Tanks Project
About the initiative
The Strengthening Think Tanks Project (STTP) aims to enhance the organisational capacity, policy influence, and long-term sustainability of research centres in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It calls for improving how research institutions produce, partner, and disseminate evidence to achieve greater impact. In turn, stronger institutions can achieve increased equity in research partnerships.
This project is driven by Southern Voice’s mission to empower think tanks to generate, disseminate, and embed Southern research and perspectives more firmly within global debates and to expand the reach of evidence-based policymaking. The project helps think tanks strengthen their capacity to participate in and influence policy conversations at local, regional, and international levels, while also building greater equity in research for development.
This initiative acknowledges the fundamental role of research organisations in global systems of knowledge production. Specifically, STTP brings evidence-based research into policy debates, convenes stakeholders to raise key issues on the public agenda, and generates locally grounded evidence. In today’s challenging environment, think tanks in the Global South face financial uncertainty, limited human resources, political pressures, and rapidly evolving policy demands. This initiative creates opportunities and spaces for knowledge exchange. In doing so, it strengthens think tanks’ organisational capacity, enabling them to respond more effectively.
A distinguishing factor of the STTP is its co-creative approach. Recognising that think tanks are best placed to understand the challenges they face and their institutional priorities, the initiative provides a space to address how research institutions can play a more influential role in closing the gap between evidence and action.
Through a co-creation process with 13 Southern Voice network members in Africa, Asia, and Latin America & the Caribbean, this initiative produced a Resilience and Sustainability Self-Assessment Framework, Tool, and Roadmap.
Find out more about each output below.
Resilience and Sustainability Self-Assessment Framework
The framework is an instrument designed to help think tanks and research organisations assess and strengthen their institutional capabilities across key issue areas such as sustainable finance, learning and innovation, strategic partnerships, and institutional communication. This self-assessment enables organisations to identify issues that need to be prioritised and develop an action plan to address them.
Resilience and Sustainability Self-Assessment Tool
The Resilience and Sustainability Self-Assessment Tool is an interactive platform that brings the Self-Assessment Framework to practice. By using it, research organisations gain clearer insights into their strengths, the barriers to sustainability and how they could increase their influence on policymaking.
The Roadmap and Action Plan
This output provides a practical guide for research centres in the Global South on how to bolster their institutional capacities and play a more influential role in bridging the gap between evidence and action. This guide is based on a co-creative effort involving 13 research institutions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa, as well as key stakeholders from the government, private and international cooperation sectors
Centers involved
This initiative was made possible by the support of the British Academy and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
