Table Of ContentStripe Review of Social
Sciences in the CGIAR
October 2009
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
Stripe Review of Social
Sciences in the CGIAR
Review Panel: Christopher B. Barrett (Chair)
Arun Agrawal
Oliver T. Coomes
Jean-Philippe Platteau
OCTOBER 2009
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The Science Council of the CGIAR encourages fair use of this material provided proper citation
is made.
Correct citation: CGIAR Science Council (2009) Stripe Review of Social Sciences in the CGIAR.
Rome, Italy: Science Council Secretariat
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Science Council Commentary
on the Stripe Review of Social Sciences in the CGIAR
October 2009
The impetus for the Stripe Review on Social Sciences in the CGIAR arose from repeated concerns
expressed in many EPMRs that social science capacity in Centers was deteriorating. Accordingly,
the SC commissioned an initial scoping paper in 2008 that presented the justification for
conducting an in‐depth review. The review Panel’s mandate was to provide a System‐level
assessment of social sciences in the CGIAR including its quality, coherence, relevance,
productivity and capacity, and to make recommendations for improvement.
The main phase of the Review was implemented from January to August, 2009. The key
elements were: collecting comprehensive data on social science activities and results; formulating
a normative framework of “optimal” social sciences roles in the CGIAR against which the
current state could be assessed; e‐consultation with Center social scientists to prioritize issues
and define hypotheses; analysis of publications and their citations, with a review of selected
publications and projects; interviews with staff and partners at nine Center headquarters or
regional offices; and soliciting feedback from Centers and external experts on the draft report.
The approach taken provides “good practice” for future studies of a similar nature. With one
exception, all Centers and CPs were responsive to nearly all the Panel’s requests.1
The Science Council discussed the Panel’s report at its 12th meeting held at CIFOR in Bogor,
Indonesia. The Chairman of the Panel, Professor Chris Barrett, presented the report. The Science
Council conveys it’s thanks to the Panel Chair and the three members, Drs Arun Agrawal, Oliver
Coomes and Jean‐Philippe Platteau, for a frank and insightful report that presents a compelling
analysis of the current state of social science in the System. The SC is impressed by the volume of
information the Panel assembled to support its analysis including the feedback it solicited from
Center staff and social scientists outside the System.
The SC emphasizes that this is an important and timely report that deserves full attention from
Center management and CGIAR membership to ensure serious consideration of its findings and
recommendations.
Key Diagnosis
The Panel forms its main diagnosis around what it has termed the “new business model”. This
model is characterized by: a) a shift from largely unrestricted core funding to relying excessively
on restricted funding, most of which comes through very small, short‐duration development‐
oriented grants; b) a lack of vision on what CGIAR social science should be doing that has led to
an almost unlimited expansion of social scientists’ agenda; and c) the Centers’ desire to maintain
a large cadre of international staff in relation to the work carried out. This has led to a loss of
focus and fragmentation in social science work, an erosion of the quality and effectiveness of
social science research, a fall of staff morale, and difficulties recruiting and retaining high quality
1 IITA opted not to participate in this review.
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staff. The strategy of maintaining a large cadre of internationally recruited social science staff
represents a high‐cost approach for the work being done, much of which could be carried out by
well‐trained MS degree holders.
The Science Council agrees with this core analysis which reveals shortcomings in Centers’ ability
to plan coherent research agendas based on clear strategies and prioritization and defend these
agendas in their negotiations with the donors thereby resisting funding‐driven fragmentation.
The SC observes that this diagnosis signals broader problems within the System that triggered
the CGIAR change management process. The effects of the trends described in the Panel’s report,
therefore, are likely to go well beyond social sciences. Nonetheless, the problem may be more
serious for social science, than for other disciplines, if the grant money is more fragmented and
developmental in orientation and if labor markets for social scientist recruitment are more
competitive. These problems may also reflect an inability of the discipline to explain and
demonstrate its value in conducting more long‐term and strategic research —both potential and
actual—to Center management and donors, and the demand for social science research,
therefore, has not been clearly articulated in the Center’s strategic planning.
The CGIAR change management process is intended to reverse these trends and improve the
coherence and relevance of the CGIAR’s research and the sustainability of long‐term funding. It
is imperative that the CGIAR System, including its Centers and donors, take the Stripe Review
Panel’s analysis seriously. Special attention to improving social science capacity is needed as part
of the change management process.
Quality of research
The Panel assessed quality primarily by looking at the quality of staff and the quality and
impacts of publications. It also reviewed on‐going projects that shed light on the scope and role
of social sciences, project funding and the planned partnerships. Close analyses of a sample of
projects allowed assessment of methodological quality and the match between objectives and
approaches.
The CGIAR System should be extremely concerned by the findings that social science research is
judged to be methodologically weak and declining in quality. In addition, there appears to be a
lack of critical mass of high quality social scientists with sufficiently diverse disciplinary skills.
The Panel also found that partnerships are increasingly transactional (even competitive in the
case of NARS) and the quality of the partnerships with ARIs is weak.
Another aspect of declining quality is that data collection, management and exploitation were
found to be deficient. The SC strongly endorses the need to systematically improve the
management of data and its use internally and externally, including attention to ethical issues in
data collection.
Nonetheless, the SC emphasizes that the review has also revealed pockets of excellence in the
CGIAR. The Panel notes that excellence seems to be associated with: sufficient seniority among
the researchers, clearly defined long‐term projects with assured funding, long‐term partnerships
with ARIs, and inclusion of an inter‐disciplinary component. Center management can influence
many of these factors despite funding pressures.
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In its assessment of quality, the Panel applied criteria used in academia, such as number of
publications and citation. The SC accepts that these criteria are also applicable to a highly
mission‐driven organization. It emphasizes, however, that publications and citations as used in
the profession at large is too narrow a perspective. In the CGIAR social science research
ambition needs to also include a strong commitment to solving important problems that impact
poor people.
Comparative advantage and relevance
The report lists the attributes that give social scientists in the Centers a comparative advantage in
generating international public goods. The most important attribute is the ability to organize
research around problems rather than disciplines—the ease of conducting inter‐disciplinary
research—and work at an international scale and sustained over time. Other elements of
comparative advantage include the Centers’ physical infrastructure and long‐term presence in
developing countries, and a cadre of well‐trained, internationally recruited staff.
Given comparative advantage, the Panel identified three areas where it sees the greatest
opportunities for CGIAR social science research to be effective in serving its mission:
(i) technological change that sustainably increases agricultural productivity by and for the poor;
(ii) natural resource conservation that benefits the rural poor directly or indirectly via
environmental services, especially those that help agricultural productivity; and (iii) institutional
innovations and policies that enhance the quality of life for poor and marginalized agrarian
populations. Of these, the Panel considers the first as the single most important area of CGIAR
social science comparative advantage because it most fully capitalizes on the opportunity for
close interaction between social and biophysical scientists that is distinctive to the CGIAR. In the
Panel’s view, a plurality if not a majority of staff should be in the first area. The Panel
hypothesizes that, as Centers’ missions have expanded, the most competent social scientists have
been drawn into the marketing and policy area, with fewer engaged in research on productivity
enhancement.
The SC agrees with the Panel’s judgment that Center management needs to take action to protect
the focus and relevance of the Center’s research agenda. Drifting with funding trends cannot be
fully avoided but it can be sharply reduced. However, in order to improve the overall relevance,
measures at the System level among the donor community are also clearly needed. For example,
critical long‐term system studies using sentinel sites would require commitment from donors to
fund such work and commitment from scientists and management to engage in long‐term work
to accumulate data, comparisons and experiences. Donors and Center management need to
understand better what good social science research can do for the CGIAR and for development
more broadly.
Impact
What ultimately determines the relevance of CGIAR’s social science is its ability to generate
impact. The SC finds in the Panel’s discussion of impact three distinct dimensions that are not
clearly separated in the report: i) impact on long‐term development goals from CGIAR’s
research; ii) impact of social sciences on influencing research priorities; and iii) impact evaluation
of research as a component of the social scientists’ research agenda.
The SC would have liked to see much clearer analysis of the demand for and value of social
science research in the context of enhancing impact of the CGIAR’s research. Examples of
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strategic outputs from social science in different areas that very likely have enhanced the
likelihood of development impact would have been helpful.
However, the pathway from social science research quality to impacts on CGIAR goals is very
indirect and highly uncertain. The Panel observes that social science research can most directly
influence the likelihood of impact through improved research priority setting and by influencing
policies. The SC also notes that in the past attempts to use a systematic ex ante analysis to
determine priorities have often not been very successful. It would be important to trace the
influence of ex ante priority setting research on what have eventually turned out to be successful
choices in terms of real impact generated.
Regarding the third aspect of impacts, the Panel identified an “impact measurement obsession”.
According to the Panel, the number of ex post impact assessments (EPIAs) has proliferated, and
these are methodologically weak and being conducted on small projects (rather than programs)
too soon after termination. The Panel suspects that this trend has been fuelled by the donors’
desire to report back to their constituencies on effective use of funds, and making all research
projects accountable for showing impact, despite the well‐known uncertainties of research
payoffs. At the same time, the Centers are responding to a requirement of the CGIAR’s
performance measurement system (PMS) to conduct a certain number of EPIAs annually. The
Panel acknowledges and the SC emphasizes that SC/SPIA has strongly pushed for the PMS to
require a limited number of high quality EPIAs to be conducted on large research efforts and
sufficiently long after research has been completed for increasing the ability of the studies to
detect and credibly document sustainable impacts. Confirming the Panel’s observations,
SC/SPIA has observed that a very large proportion of studies submitted each year to the PMS do
not qualify as EPIAs at all but are end‐of‐project evaluations.
Recommendations
The Panel provides four broadly‐based recommendations, which cover management reforms, re‐
organization and re‐focus in social sciences, updating social science staff management practices,
and fostering a culture of rigorous social science research. The SC has the following comments
on the recommendations and suggestions on how they might be implemented at the System and
Center level.
Recommendation 1: Undertake essential management reforms
1a) Resolve the mismatch between the business model and staffing patterns
1b) Realign management incentives
1c) Improve leadership selection
1d) Tighten the focus on comparative advantage
1e) Focus on impact but end the impact measurement obsession
1f) Mainstream gender equity as a basic axiom of CGIAR research
1g) Require full indirect cost recovery
The SC agrees in principle with these recommendations. The CGIAR reform process promises to
address many of the problems underlying this recommendation (especially components 1a and
1d) by improving the coherence of the overall CGIAR program and the commitment of core
funding. Implementation of this recommendation should, however, not wait for nor solely rely
on the change process. There are important steps Centers can take in the meantime such as
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improving their own strategic and medium‐term planning to guide the inclusion or exclusion of
activities and choice of research programs and the roles of social science within them (as strong
Centers are already doing).
Components 1b, 1c and 1g are clearly the immediate responsibility of individual Center
management with Board oversight but should also be pursued by the Consortium for affecting
change more uniformly across Centers and programs.
Component 1e on impacts can be best addressed through appropriate design of Mega‐programs
and agreement on the outcome targets and steps for generating impacts that will be monitored in
a systematic fashion. Component 1f on mainstreaming gender addresses a concern that has been
identified in several reviews and needs to be appropriately addressed at the System level.
Recommendation 2: Re‐organize and re‐focus CGIAR Social Science
2a) Restore longer‐term partnerships, especially upstream
2b) Focus training and capacity building on research mentoring
2c) Organize a Regional Systems Analysis Mega‐Program
2d) Organize a Mega‐Program on Stimulating and Evaluating Innovations
2e) Shrink unproductive social science units
The Science Council sees merit in what is being recommended, but suggests that the
implementation requires further discussion. Addressing recommendations 2a and 2b will be an
important challenge in moving to a programmatic mode in research implementation that will
increasingly involve partners outside the System.
In its response to the recommendations to establish Mega‐programs on particular subjects, the
SC interprets this to mean that, rather than Mega‐programs per se, a systematic way of
organizing research units or platforms for addressing research topics across Centers should be
formed. The elaboration in the report related to these components (2c and 2d) should be
incorporated into the design of future Mega‐programs, providing important roles for social
science in these programs.
Recommendation 3: Update social science personnel management practices
3a) Introduce a CGIAR Young Scientists Program
3b) Increase entry‐level compensation packages
3c) Establish a clear research career track for social scientists
3d) Restore competitive travel and sabbatical programs
3e) Employ modern human resources management practices
This cluster of recommendations is intended to address several shortcomings hampering
recruitment and retention of good quality social scientists in the CGIAR. The SC appreciates that
the Center managers are aware of many of these issues and of the importance to engage well‐
trained and highly motivated young scientists from sufficiently diverse disciplinary background.
Recommendations 3a and 3b would help but other measures will also be needed. The CGIAR
would need additional funding for implementing 3a to re‐establish a post doctoral program.
Even then it would be important to consider ways in which the new program can be designed to
meet emerging needs.
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The SC considers it important that the Centers restore their attractiveness as a long‐term
employment option for high quality scientists by exploring a range of both full and part time
(shared) appointments, and maintaining locational flexibility. This depends not only on human
resource management but also on the excitement that the System’s mission can generate. The
implementation of recommendations 3b‐3e must be tailored to the highly variable circumstances
and conditions at each Center. A more uniform approach can only be led from a central unit that
would determine human resources policies and practices across Centers. Even then, location‐
specific circumstances need to be taken into consideration.
Recommendation 4: Foster a culture of rigorous social science research
4a) Restore social science research seminar programs
4b) Individual performance measurement
4c) Stop wasting money on in‐house publications other than policy or research briefs
4d) Establish a CGIAR Institutional Review Board
In this recommendation, components 4a and 4b propose readily supportable and practical
actions to stimulate motivation and quality. The SC believes, however, that while dissemination
of research results (4c) needs to be cost‐ and time‐efficient, strategies for publications and other
means of dissemination need to consider different target groups and multiple outlets may be
necessary for disseminating the same results.
The Panel’s recommendation on Institutional Review Board echoes the recommendations from
the SC’s recent studies on ethics that suggested it is imperative for scientists to have their
research plans approved by a review board. This is particularly important for research that
involves human subjects, and the SC again flags this need for Center Boards and the Consortium
Board.
Conclusions and next steps
The main messages in this report and its recommendations in the context of a much changed
research and development environment pose new challenges for research, involving social
sciences, as well as research management. The SC fully agrees with the Panel’s optimism that
there are now excellent opportunities for building strengthened and relevant social science
components into the CGIAR. The causes for this optimism include the renewed recognition
among donors and governments of the importance of agriculture and agricultural research to
development; renewed interest in applied development research in the social sciences; and the
CGIAR reform process itself.
The SC strongly recommends that the System and the Centers collectively and without delay put
in place a process to further discuss and implement the very timely and relevant
recommendations of this report. This must involve further discussion with Center managers as
well as with social scientists themselves. Some of the recommendations could be implemented at
relatively low cost, such as revamping recruitment processes to attract higher quality social
scientists. Others will need sustained additional funding. Fortunately, there are indications that
some donors would be interested in providing such support if the System is ready to move
forward.
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Christopher B. Barrett
Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of
Department of Applied Economics and Management Applied Economics and Management
International Professor of Agriculture
Co‐Director, African Food Security & Natural Resources Management Program
Cornell Institute for International Food, Agriculture and Development 315 Warren Hall
http://ci ifad.cornell.edu/ Ithaca, NY 14853‐7801 USA
Telephone: 607‐255‐4489
Fax: 607‐255‐9984
Associa te Director for Economic Development Programs
E‐mail: [email protected]
Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future
http://aem.cornell.edu/faculty_sites/cbb2/
http://sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/
November 20, 2009
Dr. Rudy Rabbinge
Chair, Science Council
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
c/o FAO
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00153 Rome, Italy
Dear Dr. Rabbinge,
Attached please find the report of the Social Science Stripe Review (SSSR) panel that
the Science Council appointed late last year. The other three panel members –
Professors Agrawal, Coomes and Platteau – and I thank you and the rest of the
Science Council for granting us this opportunity to learn about the wide‐ranging
work of social scientists within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) and, we hope, to offer constructive insights on the strengths,
weaknesses and potential of the social sciences to serve the broader CGIAR mission.
Per the terms of reference, our report offers a comprehensive assessment of CGIAR
social science research followed by a set of clear recommendations based on the
analyses in the assessment.
An undertaking of this scale and scope requires considerable skilled support. The
panel’s work was aided invaluably by a large number of people scattered
throughout the world. We especially thank Dr. Sirkka Immonen of the Science
Council Secretariat, who expertly coordinated the panel’s activities, data collection
and interaction with Centers and Challenge Programs, and provided insightful
Cornell University is an equal opportunity affirmative action educator and employer.
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Description:Correct citation: CGIAR Science Council (2009) Stripe Review of Social a normative framework of “optimal” social sciences roles in the CGIAR
