This document summarizes the activities of the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative. It discusses ASTI's three main components: collecting data and indicators on agricultural R&D spending and capacity; conducting analytical work and diagnostics on agricultural research systems; and disseminating findings through outreach and advocacy. It also describes ASTI's current datasets, collection methods, country portfolio, and tools for accessing and visualizing data online, including new interactive features under development.

1. Agricultural R&D indicators: Monitoring
investments and capacity development at
the subregional and national levels
Nienke Beintema and Gert-Jan Stads, ASTI/IFPRI
Technical Support for Africa Science and Technology Agenda: A Partners
Meeting
4 April 2016 / Johannesburg, South Africa

2. Short overview of ASTI’s
current activities

3. ASTI’s three programmatic components
DATA
and
INDICATORS
ANALYSIS
and
DIAGNOSTICS
OUTREACH
and
ADVOCACY

4. Datasets
• Institutional arrangements
• R&D spending by cost category
• Funding sources
• R&D staff by degree, gender, and age
• R&D focus by commodity and theme
• Output indicators
• Student population
Collection Methods
• Focus on low- and middle-income countries
• Institutional survey rounds (primary data)
• Large network of national, regional, and international partners
• Led by IFPRI
ASTI data and methods

5. ASTI’s country portfolio

6. Why an analytical component for ASTI?
• Health of the research system
– Better understand strong and weak areas in their institutes or
their countries in agricultural research.
– Analyze the efficiency of the system comparing input and outputs
of the research process.
• Research and its impact on the economy
– Link the results of research systems to the performance of
agriculture, productivity and growth.

7. Dissemination channels of ASTI outputs
• Publications
• ASTI website
(www.asti.cigar.org)
• Online data tools
• Presentations
• Media
• Personal interactions

8. How to enhance use/impact at national level?
• Enhancing in-country outreach to ensure that key ASTI
outputs and findings better inform national policy and
decision making processes.
• Exploring ways to build the case for increased
investment in agricultural R&D with targeted government
audiences, utilizing traditional ex-ante analysis to
illustrate the returns, costs and benefits, potential
tradeoffs of additional investments in agricultural R&D
and capacity.
• Teaming up with other organizations for more effective
(joint) and specific in-country outreach and policy
influence.
• Providing online tools for better data access.

9. Current and upcoming
online ASTI tools and portals

10. Current online tools
• Interactive country pages allow users to access detailed
investment and human resource trends in agricultural
research, and download factsheets and other
information.
• ASTI’s country benchmarking tool for Africa south of the
Sahara enables cross-country comparisons and rankings
of key ASTI indicators.
• ASTI’s data download and graphing tool allows users to
explore in-depth datasets and to filter the data by country
and indicator.
• Supported by an automated back-end system.

11. Overview of the new ASTI website

12. Interactive agency directory
• Agency pages are one of the most
accessed components of current
ASTI website.
• New agency pool under
development:
– Filter agencies by country, type and
research focus.
– Sort agencies by FTE researchers
(total, other demographics).
– Agency details include, among
other, location (map),
demographics, research focus,
website address.

13. Complementary online tools for partners
• Enhance the accessibility and use of ASTI outputs at the
country level by developing a closed-access interactive
tool that provides detailed national-level agency data to
its focal points.
• Develop an interface that allows key regional partners to
embed or to host derivatives of existing ASTI tools and
outputs on their websites.
• Refine the set of existing tools to make it easier for
regional and national partners or related projects to
showcase (parts of) ASTI’s database in their own tools or
website.

14. Example national partners: ASTI Connect
• Tools to compare, graph, filter, and download agency-
level data.
• Online survey system for data collection, reviewing, and
sharing with responding agencies.
• Overview of policy and institutional environments
• Discussion forum.
• Tutorials/methodology.
• Database tracking stories on impact and use of data at
country level.

15. Examples: ASARECA and GFAR websites

16. Example of refined portal: RUFORUM
• Collaboration with RUFORUM in obtaining data on
agricultural higher education agencies (see next
presentation).
• Data also collected for non-RUFORUM universities.
• Relying on ASTI’s data management portal for data
storage and cleaning.
• Output: Portal on capacities in African agricultural higher
education to (in part) fill the data gap for this sector.