Building a culture of research impact assessment within the agro-food research organizations

Bouali Guesmi,José M Gil

doi:10.1186/s40100-021-00204-5

Bouali Guesmi, José M Gil

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-021-00204-5

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Abstract

The agro-food sector is an essential sector striving to satisfy the increasing demand for agro-food products worldwide. Accordingly, the Food Systems Summit has made a significant effort to heighten social and political awareness about the future food systems' role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda by 2030. Several research studies provide supporting evidence that research and development (R&D) investment is a key factor among others that contribute to enhance agricultural productivity growth and to generate high value of research return (Alston et al. 2010). However, a limited R&D budget, in both developed and developing countries has led to seriously underfunding of some emerging agro-food research areas. The recent COVID-19 crisis may have exacerbated this phenomenon.

Highlights

Agro-Food Research Organizations (‘AFRO’ thereafter) place increasing emphasis on implementing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools to assess the socio-economic impacts of research and development (R&D) efforts, which are mainly driven by the four ‘As’ of advocacy, accountability, allocation, and analysis (Morgan et al 2017)
The authors would like to emphasize that making the research impact assessment (RIA) culture more common for both public and private actors requires designing a system of indicators that allows measuring the impact of change, technology and innovation in the sector, but in society
RIA would embrace mixed-method approaches at different levels of governance to enhance the evaluation of agro-food R&D impacts within research organizations

Summary

Introduction

Agro-Food Research Organizations (‘AFRO’ thereafter) place increasing emphasis on implementing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools to assess the socio-economic impacts of R&D efforts, which are mainly driven by the four ‘As’ of advocacy, accountability, allocation, and analysis (Morgan et al 2017). In contrast to the health research field, the culture of RIA is still at its early stage in AFRO. The authors would like to emphasize that making the RIA culture more common for both public and private actors requires designing a system of indicators that allows measuring the impact of change, technology and innovation in the sector, but in society.

Results

Conclusion