Determinants of Research Productivity of Agricultural Scientists: Implications for the National Agricultural Research and Education System of India

Abstract

A micro level analysis for understanding the major determinants of research productivity of individual scientists in the National Agricultural Research and Education System of India was undertaken. A sample of two hundred scientists was drawn through multistage disproportionate stratified random sampling from a high performing and a low performing agricultural institute in India. Forced choice Q-sort technique was employed to record perception of respondents regarding relative influence exerted by selected variables on their research productivity and a factor analysis using principal component method with varimax rotation helped in extracting 11 major factors determining research productivity of agricultural scientists, namely, organizational research environment, creativity, perseverance and commitment, research facility, ability to work under constraint, incentive policy, proactiveness, purpose-driven orientation, achievement motivation, involvement in teaching and job satisfaction. The apparent uniformity in percentage variance contribution of these 11 factors implies that optimum research productivity of scientists can only be harnessed when personal and organizational factors work in harmony.