The Funding and Organization of Agricultural Research in India: Evolution and Emerging Policy Issues

The Indian agricultural research system has a long history of organized research efforts with significant impact on food security and poverty alleviation. But it now needs innovations in organization and management of research to keep pace with developments in science, economic reforms, funding constraints and other global changes. These developments are expected to have significant impact on research challenges, organization of research efforts, resource sharing, management of intellectual property, etc. An objective analysis, collective wisdom, past experiences, and innovative and successful initiatives taken by the others must guide such a paradigm shift for greater effectiveness and efficiency of the system. This Centre accords high priority to the analysis of research policy and contributed to the debate on it in the past. The present work provides new insights into the contemporary developments and emerging policy issues. An attempt is made to analyze funding and provision of research separately, and to look into effective funding mechanisms. Resource allocation, accountability and research impact are also dealt with an objective that these issues are going to be much more critical in future. Ecoregional research approach, biotechnology-related issues, human resource development, management reforms, and private research are other highlights of the present work. Nature and extent of donors’ support to the Indian system, and intensity of research efforts in India vis-à-vis other countries are revealing in themselves. Contemporary developments in international research organizations and other national research systems and public organizations and their implications for the Indian system are brought up-front. The idea is to learn from these experiences and evolve a strategy of policy, organizational, management and regulatory reforms for addressing the emerging challenges efficiently and become not only locally relevant but also globally competitive. A good deal of collaborative efforts is made to put the emerging issues into perspectives with adequate information and analysis.