Related developments
Evaluating the impact of the Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship Programme
This brief from Bioversity International evaluates the impact of the Vavilov-Frankel Fellowships (VFF), which is awarded twice annually to young scientists in developing countries to carry out research plant genetic resources. It reveals that the VFF Programme has met its stated goals of contributing to the scientific capacity of the Fellows and their home institutes, and of fostering the conservation and use of PGR. The evaluation also indicated ways in which the Fellowship Programme could be improved: focus on priority topics, increase engagement with Fellows and increase monitoring of results.(Bioversity, 2012)http://www.bioversityinternational.org/index.php?id=19&user_bioversitypublications_pi1[showUid]=7059
20/11/2012
Central America and the Caribbean to update their agricultural R&D indicators
The project aims at updating the information on agricultural research and development in the two regions, in order to highlight the need for increased investment in those areas. The IFPRI/ASTI–CIAT–IICA Training and Implementation Workshop ‘Monitoring of capabilities and investments in agricultural R&D in Central America and the Caribbean’ took place 19-20 March 2013. Staff of the research institutes designated as focal points in each country are being trained in the methodology used by the ASTI, to ensure that the data is compiled scientifically and the information from the different countries is comparable. (IICA, 09/04/2013)
22/05/2013
Are we losing sight of the true value of research ‘impact’?
Andrew Clappison tracks the impact of public-goods research related to international development. Relating the debates from the Future of Impact Conference (UK Higher Ed), he senses the risk of bureaucratising institutional approaches to the Research Excellence Framework that could stall innovation. (Research to Action, 11/04/2013)
22/05/2013
What counts as good evidence?
This briefing paper argues that there is ‘no simple answer to the question of what counts as good evidence’ if public services are to deliver more for less. The authors focus on evidence that is underpinned by research as opposed to expert opinion or stakeholder views. In debating the issue of evidence quality, they consider research as a ‘way of knowing’ while acknowledging that there are other ways: empirical, theoretical and experiential. Their overall argument is that the evidence quality depends on the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘for whom’ dimensions as they differentiate between the needs of policymakers and decision-makers. While consensus is possible among sub-groups of stakeholders on what is considered as good evidence, overall consensus is potentially an unreachable goal as power relations can also shape the outcomes. The issues addressed here, for example on the hierarchies of evidence and quality, standards and matrices of evidence, are interesting and relevant for all stakeholders involved in shaping complex and politicised decision-making. (Research Unit for Research Utilisation (RURU), University of St Andrews, 11/2012)
2/07/2013
The challenge of measuring performance of agricultural conservation and environmental programmes
This report commissioned by AGree summarises conceptual and methodological challenges of measuring the environmental performance of agriculture. The authors acknowledge that there is no comprehensive, widely accepted index or assessment tool which considers all the related factors concerning the impact of agricultural operations, practices and systems on defined environmental goals for water, wetlands restoration, and native species among others. Different types of performance measures and approaches are reviewed to identify best practices and enhance understanding of the ways in which agricultural and environmental policy might be assessed and strengthened. One main recommendation is that it may be beneficial to engage farmers and ranchers early in the collection and interpretation of data. While it is emphasised that agricultural and environmental policies have distinct purposes, the authors conclude that neither should be pursued in isolation. They conclude that aligning agricultural production with improved environmental outcomes at the landscape scale is a long-term goal achieved through collaboration among various agencies and levels of government, producers, researchers, private companies and civil society. (AGree, 01/04/2013)
2/07/2013
Dryad Digital Repository: making the data underlying scholarly publications accessible and reusable
The Dryad Digital Repository is a curated resource that makes data underlying scientific publications accessible, freely reusable, and citable. Dryad provides a general-purpose home for a wide diversity of data types. Non-profit membership is open to any stakeholder organisation, including but not limited to journals, scientific societies, publishers, research institutions, libraries, and funding organisations. Publishers are encouraged to facilitate data archiving by coordinating the submission of manuscripts with their data to Dryad. Dryad originated from an initiative among a group of leading journals and scientific societies in evolutionary biology and ecology to adopt a joint data archiving policy (JDAP) for their publications, and the recognition that easy-to-use, sustainable, community-governed data infrastructure was needed to support such a policy. (Dryad, 2014)
30/06/2014
EC launches pilot to open up publicly funded research data
Valuable information produced by researchers in many EU-funded projects will be shared freely as a result of a Pilot on Open Research Data in Horizon 2020. Researchers in projects participating in the pilot are asked to make the underlying data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications and other scientific information available for use by other researchers, innovative industries and citizens. The Pilot on Open Research Data in Horizon 2020 does for scientific information what the Open Data Strategy does for public sector information: it improves and maximises access to and re-use of research data generated by projects for the benefit of society and the economy. (European Commission, 16/12/2013)
30/06/2014
How to improve the evaluation of research activity at universities
At a seminar organised by the Interuniversity Institute for Advanced Research on Science and Universities (INAECU), Rafael van Grieken, director of the Spanish National Agency for Evaluation of Quality and Accreditation (ANECA), spoke about the evaluation of research activity at universities. Van Grieken argued that the model of accreditation and evaluation of research at universities is characterised by being overly quantitative and by not sufficiently appreciating aspects such as professional activity and knowledge transfer. 'The model tries to evaluate quality, but ends up being very quantitative because of the regulatory framework, the secondary or indirect nature, the structuring (of knowledge) into large areas and the obligation to express it by points', explained van Grieken, who noted that knowledge transfer is not sufficiently appreciated in some areas while in others it is perhaps valued too much. According to him, there was a need to develop solid qualitative indicators to assess the universities' activities and impact. The purpose of the seminar was 'to help Spanish science improve, be competitive, on the basis of proposals of evaluation and of policies of incentive schemes for research activities'. (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 07/05/2014)
30/06/2014
Commentary: Using science to drive adoption of new technologies
Paul Weisenfel, vice president for Global Programs at RTI International, comments on the renewed interest in agricultural production shown by governments and the private sector. While many new technologies in agriculture are being touted as answers to the world’s food security challenges, Weisenfel notes that the bulk of research has been expended on these new technologies with insufficient attention to determining how best to scale them up. According to him, what is needed is a combination of the hard and soft sciences to effectively get smallholders to use these new technologies on a large scale. Weisenfel suggests a focus on three broad areas of research that could dramatically increase uptake: (i) combination of technologies (both new and existing) that work best in particular agro-ecological zones; (ii) better tools to quantify and disaggregate the barriers to adoption; and (iii) sophisticated economic modelling to better understand the market dynamics that drive or inhibit adoption of technologies. With a market-led, design-centred approach – understanding the needs (expressed and latent) and modelling the markets' ability to respond – Weisenfel believes it is possible to guide programmes to address market constraints to adoption. (The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 05/05/2014)
30/06/2014
Measuring success: local food systems and the need for new indicators
In June 2014, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), USA, published this report for policy makers, analysts and researchers, who often use sets of indicators to assess whether a farming system, or new technology, is succeeding. These indicators focus almost exclusively on production. But just as weight alone is not a good measure of human health, a single-minded focus on production is an inadequate measure of the health of a farming system. Indicators of other aspects of agriculture such as the nutrition, health, environmental sustainability, rural development and other needs of the population also need to be taken into account. In partnership with the Main Street Project (http://www.mainstreetproject.org), IATP has developed a new set of indicators that better represent the diverse benefits of local, agro-ecological food systems that could be tracked over time. (IATP, 3/06/2014).
2/09/2014
Using the concepts of resilience, vulnerability and adaptability for the assessment and of agricultural systems
There is clear conceptual overlap and often the inter-changeable use of; resilience, vulnerability and adaptability, which have emerged as the dominant concepts in the study of disturbance and change of social-ecological systems. The authors, Daniel Callo-Concha, of the Centre for Development Research, at the University of Bonn (ZEF), Germany and colleagues, argue that the driving methodological and operational criteria for their application cannot be unambiguously separated. They believe it is difficult to identify guiding principles for the operational application of each and stress that their operationalisation require consistency in approaches and protocols to ensure their coherent use. They conclude that the conceptual and operational integration of resilience, vulnerability and adaptability would perhaps lead to a more complete portrayal of the behaviour of agricultural systems in changing situations. (ZEF, 01/03/2014)
31/12/2014
Monitoring the performance of agriculture and food systems
UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) recommends the creation of a whole new global information system built on the principle of open data sharing and real-time learning to drive agricultural innovation. SDSN emphasises that governments must embrace the era of digitally-enabled exchange of information and prioritise, customise, and commit to implementing different 'digital agriculture' technologies, based on local relevance and feasibility, to collect new data that is highly disaggregated, easily sharable, and more transparent to foster accountability. It is perceived that many of the real or perceived data gaps could likely be filled if existing information tools and methodologies were better aligned and more readily available to all. Technologies to develop this global information system include geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, global positioning systems (GPS), and numerous internet and smart phone tools, such as mobile phone applications, social media, and crowd sourcing. (UN SDSN, 10/01/2014)
31/12/2014
Reframing the evidence debates: a view from the media for development sector
The lack of clear standards for reporting evidence from media for development programmes, the limited efforts to date to collate and systematically review the evidence that does exist, and the lack of relevant fora in which findings of evaluations can critically be discussed, are significant barriers to evidence generation. The paper is part of the BBC Media Action’s Bridging Theory and Practice series and calls for an 'evidence agenda', which creates shared standards to systematically map the existing evidence, establishes fora to discuss and share existing evidence, and uses a strategic, longer-term collaborative investment in evaluation to highlight where evidence gaps need to be filled. Without such an agenda evidence producers, assessors and funders risk talking at cross purposes. (MandE News, 09/08/2014)
31/12/2014
The political economy of official statistics: Implications for the data revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa
The ‘Data Revolution’ rhetoric has so far largely ignored political economy factors, such as historical factors, formal and informal institutional setups and actor incentives. With ‘big data’ being a topical issue, the recent technological solutions offered by the ‘data revolution’ to improve the capacity of statistical organizations and systems should be stepped up. In this ECDPM policy paper, F. Krätke and B. Byiers argue that to make a difference, work towards a ‘data revolution’ must explicitly acknowledge the real political economy challenges on the ground and aim to work within these constraints to improving data, and/or aim to alter the current incentives for producing and using good official statistics. (ECDPM, 12/2014) Read ECDPM’s Policy Brief More information is available on the Informing a Data Revolution website
27/02/2015
The Political Economy of Official Statistics: Implications for the data revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa
‘Big data’ has become a topical issue and the recent technological solutions offered by the ‘data revolution’ to improve the capacity of statistical organizations and systems should be stepped up. In this ECDPM policy paper, F. Krätke and B. Byiers note that the ‘data revolution’ rhetoric has so far largely ignored political economy factors, such as historical factors, formal and informal institutional setups and actor incentives. They argue that to make a difference, work towards a ‘data revolution’ must explicitly acknowledge the real political economy challenges on the ground and aim to work within these constraints to improving data, and/or aim to alter the current incentives for producing and using good official statistics. (ECDPM, 12/2014) Read ECDPM’s Policy Brief More information is available on the Informing a Data Revolution website
7/03/2015
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