Future Priorities for Development Informatics Research from the Post-2015 Development Agenda

At the end of 2015, the Millennium Development Goals will be replaced by the post-2015 development agenda (PTDA). The foundational content is in place for this new agenda, which will be the single most-important force shaping the future of international development. In planning our priorities for development informatics research – the academic study of ICT4D policy and practice – we should therefore pay close attention to the PTDA.This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the post-2015 development agenda versus the current content of development informatics (DI) research. From this analysis, it identifies a set of post-2015 priorities in international development which have to date been under-emphasised within development informatics. In all, 16 development informatics research gaps for a post-2015 world are identified. The research agenda for each gap is described alongside the more general need for DI research to break out of the “ICT4D bubble” and engage more with the development mainstream.Those gaps, plus other key topics, are used to create a map of post-2015 development informatics research priorities; a map which will be of significant value to academic and other researchers planning their future DI activities. The paper ends by contemplating what the key narrative will be for the coming “fifth wave” of development informatics research: sustainable informatics, inclusive informatics, or Development 2.0.