Agricultural Research Management Information

Infusing new information and knowledge in agricultural systems:

A farm with Greenhouses, Open Fields and a small orchard in Jordan

Agricultural Research Management Information

Agricultural research in the South as an activity for development in the post colonial era was largely driven by donor, both private and foreign government, support. As these investments grew in the 1960s and 70’s, there was a need to channel resources appropriately in priority areas for agricultural development. The methodology to direct allocation of resources evolved around the “project” as a management concept to harness resources, financial and human, for development through activities implemented in a time bound manner.

With successes of research contributing to increased food production in Asia, there were initiatives to set up research institutes and organize them into research systems in the economically developing world. These were largely public funded by national governments. The International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) was set up to support agricultural research systems in developing countries in improving their research management. Along with other actors, mainly donor agencies, in agricultural research for development, ISNAR started evolving methodologies for managing projects, and later, programs (a set of projects with a common long term objective). Among these methods included defining what a project was, how it could be managed, monitored and assessed. ISNAR also looked at the issue of how to prioritize which project should be supported and how a National Agricultural Research System could develop a program and allocate resources appropriately to meet national agricultural development objectives. With the advent of affordable computers in the 1980s, ISNAR developed INFORM, a computer database system to maintain research related data and information. This system could record resources, financial and human, allocated and used for a research project and a research program and contribute to research planning, monitoring and evaluation. The FAO also developed CARIS as a system to maintain information on agricultural research projects and project outputs.

INFORM and INFORM-R, a relational database version of INFORM that could be used on personal computers, were implemented by more than 35 countries across the world at one time.

I attach a document I wrote on issues related to managing research management information (MIS_ISNAR.PDF). In 2005, I wrote a report on available research management sources, tools and applications(AIS_GFARSTUDY.PDF). These include information on Infosys +, Agricultural Research on the Web (AROW) and WISARD. Unfortunately AROW is now not available. Several donors including DFID maintain databases on research projects they support. These include those funded for agriculture.

The Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) under its ICM4ARD program aims to develop as a part of a global ARD web ring global access to information on Institutes and Research Organizations, experts, projects and project outputs such as new information, skills and technology. This is because of GFAR’s mandate to contribute and facilitate collaborative action through partnerships in agricultural research for development. This information is crucial to facilitate partnership building. Along with FAO, GFAR has developed the AgriOrg initiative and is working on standardizing agricultural projects and experts data standards.

Over the years the perspective on research management related information such as on Institutes and Research Organizations, experts, projects and project outputs has grown from the information being used to manage the allocation of resources to agricultural research and priority setting to it being used to share and exchange information, knowledge, skills and technology. The trend appears also towards collecting and analysing this information for costing agricultural technology. This is because the international agricultural technology market is growing and agricultural research is increasingly becoming a private or public-private sector enterprise.