Knowledge creation in Bangladesh: institutional challenges and personal opportunities within civil society

This article offers an institutional and sociological analysis of knowledge generation and dissemination for policy in Bangladesh. Because institutions participating in knowledge generation remain largely understudied, the article focuses on analysing the means and challenges to knowledge creation, and the complex agency and power relations among and within think tanks and universities. The article concludes that the scarcity of domestic financial resources and the political co-option of think tanks and universities weaken academic freedom, fragment the knowledge creation process, and contribute to depoliticising research. Research-to-policy linkages are engineered through the personalised networks of a few strategic individuals.