A report prepared for the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences & Food Research Partnership: International Sub-Group

Andrée Carter UK Collaborative on Development Sciences a.carter@ukcds.org.uk

Jeff Waage London International Development Centre

jeff.waage@lidc.bloomsbury.ac.uk

30 October 2011

UNDERSTANDING THE UK AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL

DEVELOPMENT AND FOOD SECURITY: Historical perspectives and future opportunities

Contents

Executive Summary 1

Recommendations 3

1. Background 5

2. Data gathering 6

2.1 Research Project Databases 6

2.2 Bibliometrics 7

2.3 Students/Visitors 7

2.4 Evidence of Impact 7

3. Changing Patterns of Funding 9

3.1 Research project and programme investments 9

3.2 Publications 16

3.3 Students and visiting scientists 18

3.4 Impact of UK investments in agri-food science for development 20

4. Summary 22

The role of universities and capacity building in agricultural research for development

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Research trends 22

Research partnership and development impact 23

Training 23

5. Recommendations 25

Appendices 1 Description of research databases

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2 Network analysis and text mining methodology

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3 Network Analysis and Text Mining by Richard Wadsworth

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Acknowledgements The authors are very grateful to the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission, Rothamsted Research, BBSRC, the Wellcome Trust, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Higher Education Statistics Agency and CIMRIC (DFID R4D database) for providing information or data to assist this study. Thanks also to Richard Wadsworth of CEH, Lancaster who helped develop and carry out the analysis of the funding and publications databases.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i) Changes in priorities in research funding for UK agricultural research for development

over the last decade have led to concerns from a number of stakeholders. The perceived decline in funding was considered to be impacting on the UK’s capability to sustain its own agriculture research for development science base and contribute to commitments of food security and international development. This report was produced to inform the board of the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences of the situation and it has also provided detailed knowledge to the Food Research Partnership’s evaluation led by Sir John Beddington, the Chief Scientist, of the importance of UK collaboration with international organisations to global food security.

ii) This review collated data on funding programmes, peer reviewed publications, and visiting students and fellowships from overseas. Information was obtained from a range of organisations given that no single source was available. A methodology of analysing funder and publications databases was developed which allowed a comprehensive analysis of UK and low and middle income country (LMIC) investments and collaborations since 1973. This methodology could be developed further and also used to investigate the UK contribution to international development in other disciplines.

iii) Until 2005 DFID was the main funder of UK agriculture research, particularly through the £190m Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS), which ran from 1995 to 2005. After 2002, DFID research funding became un-tied following the introduction of the International Development Act and UK institutions were required to compete with international organisations for project funding. DFID funds are now increasingly awarded directly to programmes in LMICs or through large grant support to initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed). From 2006 an increase in the DFID budget, DFID collaborations with BBSRC, EU FP6 and 7, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, other philanthropist organisations like the Leverhulme Trust, the Gatsby Foundation and the private sector have all accounted for an overall increase in UK agriculture research funding relevant to international development. There is also evidence that UK collaboration with governments and scientists from the emerging economies is becoming an important aspect of the UK’s contribution to agriculture research.

iv) The impact of this change and diversification in funding appears to be a shift from the very applied activities, previously funded by DFID, to translational research which engages a wider range of research and academic institutions and ‘think tanks’. This is illustrated by the fact that despite the decline in numbers of dedicated agricultural university departments, around a third of UK universities applied to the BBSRC/DFID joint programme on Sustainable Agriculture Research for International Development. Advances in “-omics” sciences, marker-assisted breeding, molecular diagnostics and other areas has made the transfer of knowledge and methods from Northern crop and livestock research models to Southern targets easier, and has also accelerated research and development generally for a range of interventions, including new crop varieties, animal vaccines, pest and disease management strategies. It was not clear whether this growth in more technical, translational research has come at the expense of UK investment in more traditional, applied agri-food research for development. More work would be needed to ascertain this. Building research capacity in LMICs is a key priority for future food security. . It was not possible to make a comprehensive assessment from the information available as to whether this on-going funding has made any significant impact on research capacity and ultimately food security as few reports on monitoring and evaluation were identified.

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However, the analysis showed long term, on-going investments through a long series of projects in a number of countries, mostly in East Africa and South Asia. It also revealed a number of countries where investment had been limited (five or less projects since 1973), where building of capacity may have been very limited. No statistically significant relationship was found between UK research funding partnerships with particular countries and the production of scientific papers.

v) The UK continues to be an important training destination for post graduate and post-doctoral study with Commonwealth studentships in agriculture related subjects having increased to 10% of all awards. Personal linkages and alumini are cited by academics as the most important factor in developing sustainable relationships with scientists in LMICs, though concern has been expressed about current visa restrictions and increasing competition from other international universities. There is a real opportunity to develop and strengthen two-way collaborations through better use of existing UK and EU exchange funds and building on alumni links.

vi) The overall picture shows that UK research funding has increased but funds are increasingly internationally competitive, so UK science relies on excellence and impact to continue to win and remain a leading contributor to global food security. The skills and facilities the UK has have not emerged from a strategic plan but a series of different funding decisions over the last 40 years. The newly established UK Global Food Security research programme will have the opportunity to develop a more coordinated approach to funding.

vii) Below are four recommendations for action. Cutting across all of these is a need for better monitoring, evaluation and learning of the impact of different kinds of investment, across the UK and international development objectives.

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RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Improving partnerships with national programmes in LMICs

a. The UK cannot invest in research partnerships across all LMICs. It has been shown

that some research and training investment to date has been focussed on particular countries and institutions in LMICs – this may have built up some improved capacity which may help achieve UK Food Research Partnership objectives in those countries, although the quality of the partnerships built are unknown. It is recommended that several of these countries with a history of strong research links be selected for inclusion in the Food Research Partnership plan for future collaboration. Some deeper analysis of databases on the nature of research links and some further evaluation of their impact to date may help with this process. Future programmes must include comprehensive monitoring and evaluation to ensure best value, transparency, maximum impact and learning for future investments.

b. One approach to inform prioritisation would be to construct a matrix of potential country partners and criteria for their selection. These would include some measure of investment to date and the resulting outputs, but also scoring relative to the key objectives of UK agricultural research e.g. the value of LMIC national research programmes to achieving UK priorities and the potential for investment in those countries to best deliver UK international development, foreign diplomacy or trade objectives.

c. Direct personal contacts through students and fellowships are widely reported by UK universities and research institutions as the basis for sustainable and fruitful collaborations. Mechanisms to maintain or strengthen these links should be considered including the development of other incentives such as two way exchanges and multi-site degree courses. Providing and promoting information on research funding opportunities resulted in high success levels for UK institutions so this approach should continue.

2. Partnership with the CGIAR

a. The CGIAR emerges as a key facilitator of UK research links and activities with LMICs. It is also linked to UK funding and research in a number of different, possibly complementary ways, although the potential synergy of UK untied investment and special project collaboration deserves closer analysis.

b. A strategic examination is recommended, using the databases available, of where

UK CGIAR links have proven most valuable in addressing UK priorities for agriculture and development. This should recognise the recent radical change in CGIAR strategy with the establishment of its Strategic Research Framework and CGIAR Consortium headquartered in Europe. A number of the new cross-cutting programmes, which will be seeking partnerships from advanced research institutes, are particularly suited to UK agricultural research priorities, including cereal improvement, climate change and the agriculture/health interface.

3. Investment in professional training

a. Training in agricultural research is a substantial UK activity and brings considerable

financial benefits to UK universities while building loyal partnerships for future agricultural research in countries which will grow stronger in this area. This review

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has focused on a range of specific training initiatives but there is much more that has not been assessed.

b. However, this activity is under threat from both immigration restrictions on overseas students (or perceptions of UK restrictions), competition from universities in developed countries who offer cheaper fees and the growth of universities abroad in LMICs. Imaginative responses to this, including distance learning in agricultural research, have emerged and been very successful, and a number of UK institutions are, by building capacity for LMICs to provide their own training, creating long term training partnerships as well, which will secure a UK role in producing future professionals.

c. Because of the rapid change in this area, it is recommended that a rapid assessment is made to assess the impact of professional training in agriculture, and to evaluate the benefits for both UK and LMICs, drawing on and improving methodologies such as those used for the evaluation of the Commonwealth Scholarships and other programmes mentioned above. Based on a better understanding of the value of this investment, they can then work together to prioritise training investments. This process may benefit for coordination with similar analysis of training in other sectors including health and environment.

4. Coordination of UK agri-food research for development

a. This study has begun to reveal the “footprint” of UK research in LMICs, its emphasis in different countries and different subjects, and its continuities and discontinuities over time. While this overall activity has distinctive features, it in no way describes a “strategy”. Rather it is the product of a wide number of separate, unlinked investments, often overlapping in countries and even institutions. What is needed now is to understand whether a more strategic, coordinated approach might improve achievement of UK objectives in agriculture research for development.

b. Building research partnerships with LMICs is valuable to the UK, and the existing project-based and training activities from many investors are too short term to achieve this without some degree of coordination. This favours a more strategic approach. There could be some immediate benefits; less duplication of effort in areas of focus and less wastage of resources in areas where a few one-off investments will achieve neither research nor capacity building objectives. Therefore it is recommended that establishment of a coordinating mechanism involving UK investors, but linking with beneficiaries and other investors, with strong UK leadership, undertakes an assessment and then develops a strategic approach that better delivers UK objectives.

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1. Background The UK Collaborative on Development Sciences (UKCDS) brings together the key UK government and research funders who support science that is relevant to international development. Concern had been expressed by a number of stakeholders that changes in priorities in research programme funding, the award criteria and a perceived general decline in funding for agricultural research for development were impacting on the UK’s capability to contribute to food security and international development. The UKCDS Board requested a report on the ‘health’ of the UK agri-food science base relevant to international development to help inform the actual situation. The UKCDS secretariat has worked with the London International Development Centre (LIDC), a development-focused consortium of Colleges within the University of London, to gather the evidence presented in this report. The Board’s request coincided with a recommendation ‘to identify the impact of the international dimension on UK agri-food research expertise and training’ from the Food Research Partnership’s (FRP) Skills Sub-Group, in their report High Level Skills for Food1- an initiative of the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington. A FRP international sub-group was established in 2010 led by BBSRC; and the authors of this UKCDS/LIDC report agreed to work together with the FRP sub-group to provide a historical and current overview of the UK agri-food science contribution to international development and to propose future opportunities. This report aims to present information to help understand the nature and change in research links in agri-food science between the UK and low and middle income countries (LMICs) and their impact, as a basis for guiding future research investment and partnerships which build capacity of both UK and partner researcher institutions and scientists. UK investment and partnership in agricultural research with LMICs serves a number of ends.

Advancing UK and international development objectives, e.g. the Millennium Development Goals, through contributions in science and innovation2.

Improving expertise of UK scientists, and their academic performance and impact through international research collaboration in areas relevant to their science.

Enabling UK scientists to better research specific, international issues of direct relevance to the UK agriculture sector (e.g. tropical disease work in situ)

Improving income and sustainability of UK HE/research institutions through student fees and scholarships/research grants from UK and (particularly) other sources

Building strong alliances with institutions in LMICs that improve future prospects for research collaboration and funding for British scientists.

It is suggested therefore that the information provided below be considered both in the context of benefits to UK science and contributions of UK science to international development.

1 http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/bispartners/goscience/docs/h/10-929-high-level-skills-for-food.pdf last

accessed 26/05/11 2 Conway, G and J Waage (2010) Science and Innovation for Development, UKCDS, London

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2. Data Gathering Data and metrics on how the UK contributes to agricultural research relevant to international development are held by a wide range of organisations and therefore needed to be obtained from a number of different sources to contribute to an overall picture of the historical and current situation. The possible sources and metrics described below provided a conceptual starting point, from which a set of resources was drawn.

Data can be collected on research grants, including proposals and funded projects, information on institutions that bid/succeeded; specialist areas in which proposal were made (from proposals, abstracts or funder codes); and levels of funding overall or as shared between collaborators.

Regarding training in agriculture, food security and international development relevant topics, data can be gathered on students and visiting researchers, regarding country of origin; type of course (e.g. MSc, PhD), subjects/modules studied; destination country and career of students/visitors and income to UK institutions.

Regarding publications, bibliometrics can be gathered on lead authors and institutions and collaborating authors from UK and LMICs, subject studies, geographical and development context.

Finally, evidence of outputs, outcomes and impact may be gathered on all of the above through research project reports and evaluations, project case studies, citations and follow up of individual careers and institutional change through training and partnerships.

2.1 Research Project Databases The involvement of UK scientists in research for international development has been financially supported largely by projects funded by UK, European and international funding bodies or private foundations. The following research funding databases were accessed and analysed to identify research organisations, their collaborators and the research areas of interest3

DFID agriculture relevant project and programme funding databases 1973 to 2004 and 2004-2010 including the £190m programme Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) 1995 to 2005. A subset of the overall DFID R4D database was provided by CIMRC4

BBSRC, DFID and Scottish Government collaborations, specifically Sustainable Agricultural Research for International Development (SARID) and Combating Infectious Diseases of Livestock for International Development (CIDLID).

Wellcome Trust - Research on livestock diseases that impact significantly on human health and wellbeing in the developing world Animal Health in the Developing World

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – agriculture funding to UK institutions since 2004

EU Framework Programme 6 and 7 awards in food and agriculture to UK institutions with developing country partners

These funding streams were further analysed by selecting the first three databases and generating patterns of funding, between subject area and partner country and institutions

3 Full details are in Appendix 1

4 CIMRC is a CABI-led consortium which developed and continues to manage the

Research4Development portal for DFID

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over time using network analysis 5. Further analysis was carried out using text mining to identify trends in funding and convergence or separation of the themes funded. Further details are reported in Appendix 2 and 3 2.2 Bibliometrics The ISI Web of Knowledge is an academic citation indexing and search service, which is combined with web linking6. The Web of Knowledge coverage encompasses the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. It provides bibliographic content and the tools to access, analyse, and manage research information and enables multiple databases to be searched simultaneously. Peer reviewed paper outputs from the UK science community in collaboration with African scientists on agricultural science relevant to international development and Africa were found by searching for agricultural key words and specifying Africa within the author address field. Network analysis and text mining techniques were then used to identify patterns of collaboration and correlation with UK funding investments. Further details are reported in Appendix 3. 2.3 Students/Visitors Discussions with the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)7 identified that generic data are available on nationality and number of students from LMICs registering for under and post graduate degrees at UK universities but identifying the specific courses or modules they study, that had relevance to agriculture, food security and international development would be a major task. Submitted project titles for overseas PhD student projects were often incomplete or not necessarily submitted and no data have been collected by HESA on the destination of overseas students or their longer term careers after graduation as currently done for UK students –though this is about to change. Relevant information was easily accessed from both the Commonwealth Scholars Commission8 and the Rothamsted International Fellowship Scheme9. Students with the CSC usually register with universities and therefore the CSC data provided a ready-made subset of the data that could be provided by HESA. Information on other smaller scale student and fellowship schemes run by UK institutions such as the Royal Agricultural College, the Leeds University Africa College was identified. Additional feedback on university and research institution interactions with agriculture and international development was taken from a questionnaire issued by the Food Research Partnership International Sub Group and completed by selected UK institutions. 2.4 Evidence of Impact Identifying specific data and evidence of the impact10 of the investment from UK agri-food science programmes on international development was problematic. A range of project and programme case studies can be identified but they are located in multiple locations including

5 R Wadsworth Network analysis and Text Mining, Appendix 2

6 http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/science_products/a-z/isi_web_of_knowledge/

7 http://www.hesa.ac.uk

8 http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/

9 http://www.rothamsted-international.org/afp/index.shtml

10 Broadly defined, to include social, economic, cultural, environmental, health and quality of life

benefits

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DFID’s Research 4 Development research portal11, funder websites and academic websites. Many describe outcomes, very few make a good comprehensive case for impact - and even fewer were able to articulate mutual benefit to the UK and the developing country. Two programmes, the RNRRS and the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme which have been evaluated for impact were selected to illustrate lessons learnt. The impact of peer reviewed scientific papers can be measured by the number of times has been cited by other authors. Citation data for the papers, identified by the ISI Web of Knowledge, provide an assessment of the impact of the peer reviewed papers within the international scientific community. Correlation of research funding with the publication of peer reviewed papers by country was also carried out.

11 www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d

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3. Changing Patterns of Funding 3.1 Research project and programme investments The databases provide a historical perspective 1973-2010, and reflect that funding was initially dominated by DFID and then by the UK government’s change in approach to funding international development and specifically agriculture. In the past decade, funding to support UK institutions has changed substantially – particularly after 2002 and the introduction of the International Development Act, when DFID research funds were no longer awarded directly to UK research institutions, but through international competition. The agriculture related project entries in the DFID R4D database started in 1973 but the most significant set of programmes in agricultural research were under the 10 year Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy Programme (RNRRS). This was a £190m funding scheme which ran from 1995-2004. Ten programmes relevant to agricultural research for development were funded: Crop Protection, Livestock Protection, Animal Health, Forestry, Crop Post-harvest Research, Plant Sciences, Natural Resources Systems and Fisheries Management Science. UK research institutions played a key part in the delivery of these programmes. When the RNRRS programme came to an end it was, following an evaluation (see 3.4), replaced by a more specialised set of research programmes, including joint funding by DFID and the UK Research Councils (Box 1). In 2006-2007 DFID invested over £30m and then planned to double funding for research on agriculture, fisheries and forestry to £80m per annum by 2010. The Secretary of State announced in March 2006 the allocation of £200 million pounds over 5 years for the new Strategy for Research on Sustainable Agriculture (SRSA). This was built around 4 main components (Box 1):

The R4D database shows that a significant portion of the more recent DFID budget (since 2004) has been allocated to large programmes e.g.

Research into Use led by Natural Resources International Ltd at 07/06 to 04/11 £37,500,000;

Box 1. The DFID agricultural research strategy for 2008-2013 identified four areas of investment:

Research into use - Programmes aimed at getting research outputs into use and building capacity of people to do, access and utilise research for better livelihoods and growth. This also entails public-private partnerships to get policies, products and technologies into widespread use by farmers in developing countries.

Regional research - Support to existing regional organisations in West, East, Central and Southern Africa, and regional programmes in South Asia and the Andes. This aims to capitalise on economies of scale and promote spill over between countries across regions with common problems through research on regional public goods.

International research - Support to international agricultural research, especially the CGIAR, to deliver high quality and effective international public good research including technology, methodology and policy for poverty reduction and growth.

Advanced research- Responsive programmes with UK Research Councils to support collaborative research between UK and southern researchers on basic scientific aspects of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management which are translated and adapted to developing country circumstances with southern partners

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Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) 04/05-08/11 £5,600,000 a public private partnership;

While agricultural research funding has always supported a mixture of research ranging from “up-stream” translational12 to “down-stream” applied, there has since 2005 been a greater emphasis on translational research. This approach has been encouraged with new initiatives such as the DFID-BBSRC SARID and CIDLID programmes:

SARID launched in 2007 and funded by DFID (£5,342,802) and BBSRC (£2,500,000) supported 12 projects

CIDLID launched in 2008 and funded by DFID (£9,657,198), BBSRC (£3,000,000, and Scottish Government (£500,000); supported 16 projects

All projects are led by UK Principal Investigators reflecting the need to encourage research capacity strengthening in LMICs

The Wellcome Trust supported 12 projects in the £25m programme, Animal Health in the Developing World (AHDW). Scientist from LMICs and developed countries were funded, though again Principal Investigators were based in the UK, Europe, USA and Australia. Further details of the awards are in Appendix 1. Table 1 ranks the UK research organisations by the share of the projects they have been awarded in AHDW, SARID and CIDLID, recognising that two of the programmes were livestock focussed.

Organisation £

Institute of Animal Health 4 265 233

Edinburgh University (including Roslin) 4 057 830

Royal Veterinary College 3 762 151

Imperial College 2 160 022

Aberystwyth University 1 521 205

Glasgow University 1 490 912

Rothamsted 1 454 898

Nottingham University 868 319

Veterinary Laboratory Agency 797 291

Liverpool University 648 441 Table 1. Top ten recipients of research funds from AHDW, SARID and CIDLID programmes

Collaborative funding is also reflected in partnerships with other major donors. In February 2011, DFID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a coordinated effort to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries by supporting agricultural research projects to help small farmers increase their yields and incomes. DFID and the Foundation will work together to identify the projects, and the foundation’s Agricultural Development Initiative will manage them. The collaboration will focus on dealing with the most serious threats to food production in LMICs — such as crop diseases, pests, poor soil quality, and extreme weather—and tackle these threats from multiple angles to develop long-term, sustainable solutions. DFID is contributing approximately £20 million over the next five years to this partnership, and the Foundation is providing £44 million.

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Translational research takes fundamental understanding (the product of basic research) and relates this to systems we want to improve. Its outputs are then used for applied research which delivers products that we can use.

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Philanthropic organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust and the Gatsby Trust Fund have all funded research programmes or projects directly with UK institutions as lead or contributors. They have recognised UK agri-food research expertise and invested in UK led, large scale projects (£ multi-million) investing in a small range of research and NGO institutions. Funding awards suggest there appears to be greater emphasis on projects that have a focus on agriculture, economics and social sciences, as well as some interest in links between agriculture and other areas. For instance, the Leverhulme Trust has recently awarded £3.5m to a University of London consortium to integrate research into agriculture and health for development. Since 2007 the Gates Foundation has awarded a total of approximately $40m to agriculture related projects led by UK institutions including: CAB International, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Hinxton), Global Alliance For Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVMED), Imperial College, Institute of Development Studies, International Institute for Environment and Development, Middlesex University, Oxfam Great Britain and the University of Greenwich (Natural Resource Institute). Databases are unable to easily identify the proportion of funds that are allocated to sub-contractor partners, though a recent award to the CGIAR International Rice Research Institute of £11m included subcontracts to Nottingham, Cambridge, Oxford and Sheffield Universities of a total of $1.2m. In 2011, BBSRC, DFID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Department of Biotechnology of India's Ministry of Science and Technology and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research announced a unique £20M joint research initiative to fund research teams from the UK, India and other LMICs to work on research projects to improve the sustainability of vital food crops. The programme Sustainable Crop Production Research for International Development (SCPRID) intends to support high-quality basic and strategic biological and biotechnological research to improve the production of major food crops in developing countries. Whilst the UK has a good track record of winning EU FP6 and FP7 projects overall, analysis shows that there were proportionately much fewer UK led projects in agriculture and food when partnering with developing countries. Of these the UK led on only 6% of those in FP6 (Box 2) and led or collaborated in 28% in FP7 to 2010 – databases do not allow a direct comparison (Box 3). An exception is within the 2010 EU Africa themed awards which include agriculture and food security related topics where UK research institutions have provisionally been awarded more funds than any other country and lead or collaborate in six of the nine agriculture related projects (Box 3) . The opportunity for funding from the Africa programme was widely promoted within the UK by UKCDS.

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Box 2 EU FP6 International cooperation (INCO) and food awards

• INCO funding instrument - 64 projects had ‘agriculture’ as a key word; 5 projects were led by the UK.

• 4 of these UK projects had LMICs as collaborators: o Bangor University -rice bean research in India and Nepal, o Macaulay Land Use Research Institute – arid and semi-arid ecosystems

management with China and Nepal o Nottingham University - Biodiverse, biosafe and value added crops –

Bambara groundnut - with Ghana, Tanzania, Namibia, India, Botswana and India

o Wolverhampton University - palm leaf geotextiles, with Gambia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, South Africa, China

• UK led on 23 of the 190 projects under the Food Quality and Safety Instrument; Five of these projects included partners from China, Brazil and Argentina – led by FARA, DFID/NERC, John Innes Centre, Defra/CSL (now FERA) and the Roslin Centre

Box 3 EU FP7

International cooperation is not a separate research funding stream as in FP6. Projects involving LMICs are now embedded in each of the funding themes.

€1.9bn ‘Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology’ to date 179 projects funded by different activities.

UK is leader or collaborator in 126 projects of these (70.4%) (D=66%, NL=65%, F=63%)

Of these 126 projects, 18 (14%) include developing countries as partners.

UK leads 5 of the 18 projects (28%) Stirling (2), Edinburgh, AIDC Ltd and Defra

No projects on agriculture have been funded under the current INCO coordination instrument

Project

Amount of funding requested from EC

No of partners

Name of UK institutions

Water Harvesting for Rainfed Africa: investing in dryland agriculture for growth and resilience 1,999,313.00 7 University of Leeds UK

Improved Drought Early Warning and FORecasting to strengthen preparedness and adaptation to droughts in Africa 3,499,194.00 14

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts UK

Water Harvesting Technologies Revisited: Potentials for Innovations, Improvements and Upscaling in Sub-Saharan Africa 1,999,930.00 8

University of Newcastle Upon Tyne UK

European Union and African Union cooperative research to increase Food production in irrigated farming 3,995,053.00 14 ODI

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Project

Amount of funding requested from EC

No of partners

Name of UK institutions

Biotechnology for Africa's sustainable water supply 999,533.00 20 University of Bath UK

Including Smallholders in Agricultural Research for Development 499,050.00 6 Practical Action UK

Table 2. EU Africa call 2011, UK lead and collaborator contributions to agriculture related projects

3.1.1 Patterns of collaboration Analysis of the funding datasets generated information on UK recipient research organisations and which countries and institutions have been partners of UK scientists in agricultural research for development. UK research institutions were the primary recipients of the majority of the research funds (>70%), though monies may then have be reallocated to subcontractors. The proportion of UK-only projects has decreased significantly in the past 25 years. In this analysis, particular attention was paid to indications of continuity in collaboration. This was done on the hypothesis that effective research outcomes and effective capacity strengthening is more likely to result from long-term partnerships. Most UK research grants are of short duration, 1-3 years, meaning that their development contribution would rarely realised in a single project. Further, one-off projects with partners who do not have the local capacity to continue research and realise applied outcomes and impacts is of little value. Hence, one-off projects with institutions in LMICs may be of little value to generating research outcomes or to building capacity, and continuity may benefit both UK and local researchers. However, the analysis reveals only the total number of institutional research links over time, and not an analysis of the extent to which these were on the same research problem, although that would be possible with more effort. Figure 1 shows patterns of links generated by projects between UK researchers and researchers in other countries. Other developed countries appear here because they are often partners on projects with UK and LMICs or they are home to international organisations who collaborate (like FAO in Italy). In Figure 1, countries where there have been less than five project links in the database (ie from 1973) are listed on the left. If, as suggested, continuity is important, then this very large number of “low input” links has probably been of limited value overall. On the other hand, it shows UK agri-food research exploring research a collaboration opportunities in a very broad range of countries. Of the country links where there have been more than five projects funded, particularly frequent partnerships have occurred with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where development assistance has been focused in recent decade and, within these regions, in countries with a colonial/Anglophone tradition, e.g. with African focus on Eastern and Southern Africa and, to a lesser extent, Anglophone countries in West Africa. Figure 2 makes this more clear by showing countries with 10 or more links. Note the extent to which UK projects have created regional links in East Africa and South Asia. LMICs that exhibit particularly high levels of linkage include (with project links from the database since 1973 India (237), Kenya (185), Tanzania (132), Zimbabwe (108), Ghana (101), Uganda (101) Philippines (78), Nigeria (72) and Bangladesh (70) have had the most project links with UK research organisations. According to our hypothesis, these are most likely to have valuable relations with UK agricultural research, where the marginal return on additional research investment may be greatest.

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The same analysis may be done on links between collaborating UK institutions and institutions in LMICs, rather than countries, but this analysis is more complex. Figure 3 shows institutions with over 20 links. It draws out UK Centres like NRI, NRIL Ltd, the Centre for Arid Zone Studies-Natural Resources, Bangor University and the Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine (Roslin) by virtue of their now historical role in coordinating the DFID RNRRS programmes. Figure 3 also reveals substantial links with centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), based mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. CGIAR partnerships have been features of both RNRRS and subsequent, post-2005 funding such as DFID-BBSRC. Frequently, CGIAR centres are partners with British institutions and with national programmes in LMICs, performing a “linking” role between UK translational research and local applied research.

Figure 1. UK country collaboration project links on more than five occasions 1973-2009

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Figure 2. UK country collaboration project links on more than 10 occasions, 1973 -2009

Independent of CGIAR-UK institutional links, DFID has funded CGIAR directly and is currently a major CGIAR donor, contributing to nearly all the Centres through core funding. DFID funding to the CGIAR has increased substantially in recent years and is currently approximately £40m per annum. It would be interesting to understand to what extent DFID’s direct, untied support to the CGIAR is having a positive effect on separately funded projects between UK researchers and CGIAR Centres, in terms of both research outputs and capacity strengthening. Preliminary analysis suggests that the CGIAR is playing an important role in linking UK research groups with national research organisations in LMICs – they frequently appear as partners in LMIC national programmes, and appear to be associated with multi-partner projects, suggesting that Centres help to extend the reach of UK collaborators into national programmes. It is noteworthy that, with its recent re-organization into cross-Centre themes and greater external collaboration, the CGIAR is expanding its remit into new areas, such as climate change and health, where the UK science base could make a particular contribution.

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Figure 3. Links between UK institutions and LMIC partners where there are project links on 20 or more occasions. Note that very few LMIC nationally funded programmes appear but there are substantial CGIAR links (highlighted).

3.2 Publications Agricultural research for development should generate outputs, in the forms of:

products and publications

research outcomes that demonstrate the value of outputs through proof of concept testing and trials with local research partners

research impacts which arise when outcomes are taken up by communities and scaled up by development partners

effects on livelihoods and other measures of wellbeing and development.

However, effort into measuring these outputs, outcomes and impacts has been very limited. One accessible measure of outputs has been scientific publications. To do this, publications on agriculture, which had a lead or co-author with an African research institution in the address field, were examined using the Web of Knowledge. From a database of 2000+ papers, over 700 had valid address fields which could be used to enable analysis (Table 2).

Country Papers % citations %

South Africa 406 58.0 9037 51.0

Nigeria 67 9.6 1229 6.9

Uganda 35 5.0 955 5.4

Kenya 32 4.6 998 5.6

Ethiopia 31 4.4 913 5.2

Benin 28 4.0 1121 6.3

Cameroon 17 2.4 856 4.8

Zimbabwe 17 2.4 364 2.1

Niger 12 1.7 468 2.6

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Country Papers % citations %

Malawi 11 1.6 196 1.1

Cote d’Ivoire 8 1.1 149 0.8

Burkina Faso 7 1.0 178 1.0

Mali 6 0.9 81 0.5

Ghana 5 0.7 192 1.1

Tanzania 5 0.7 723 4.1

Togo 3 0.4 23 0.1

Zambia 3 0.4 44 0.2

Egypt 2 0.3 62 0.4

Botswana 1 0.1 29 0.2

Guinea 1 0.1 16 0.1

Namibia 1 0.1 23 0.1

Sengal 1 0.1 39 0.2

Swaziland 1 0.1 16 0.1 Table 2. African countries, published papers and citations

South African authors and co-authors were very dominant in the majority of publications in agriculture, reflecting the country’s large and comparatively well-resourced agricultural research community. Table 3 shows the most popular journals for publication of agricultural research by African authors

Journal Papers published

Agroforestry Systems 85

South African Journal of Plant and Soil 82

Experimental Agriculture 67

Field Crops Research 55

South African Journal of Animal Science 47

Tropical Agriculture 43

Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 42

Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 39

Tropical Animal Health and Production 36

African Journal of Biotechnology 32

Plant and Soil 32

Agricultural Systems 31 Table 3. Popular journals for publication of African authored or co-authored papers

UK authors have published with Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa on 4 or more occasions. Authors from Germany, the Netherlands and the USA also have a number of academic partnerships with a range of African countries but all, including the UK, are linked with South African scientists The pattern of publication was then compared to the pattern of UK support to agricultural research in Africa. . There is no statistically significant relationship between distribution of UK research funding to African countries and the number of agriculture related peer reviewed papers produced by those countries. This may reflect in part the time delay between research investment and publication outputs, but the lack of correlation suggests that UK research partners are not generating, through these collaborations, research outputs that contribute markedly to the scientific knowledge base. Research outputs may find application and lead to outcomes, but the lack of peer review publication suggests that they are not substantially enhancing research capacity development in partner institutions. The Web of Knowledge results, if developed further, could provide a valuable baseline for measuring future change.

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3.3 Students and visiting scientists The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) has been responsible for managing Britain’s contribution to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) since 1959. Awards are funded by DFID for the low and medium income Commonwealth countries and to date 16000 awards have been funded by UK government (61% total) which are mainly for post graduate study and fellowships at post-doctoral level. Since the late 1990s research awards relevant to international development and the Millennium Development Goals have been a key focus for awards. Applicants are awarded on academic merit and measures of the potential development benefit to the applicant’s country of the training or research proposed. The Directory of Commonwealth Scholars and Fellows 1959-200913 records the achievements of Commonwealth Scholars and Fellows over the last 50 years. It contains 3,700 career profiles, and lists the name, country and year of award for more than 25,000 people. This database was interrogated by CSC for students who had studied agriculture or closely related topics. Scholars and Fellows come from every Commonwealth country, and the overwhelming majority have returned to work in their home country or region. Large numbers have reached there the very highest levels of their profession. Around 1000 alumni have had awards in agriculture, food science and veterinary science. 45% from Sub Saharan Africa and 41% from South Asia. There has been a steady increase in the number of awards in agriculture overtime accounting for just over 10% of the total awards between 2000 and 2010, compared with 3% in 1960’s and 4% in the 1970’s. Figure 4 shows the total student numbers for the different funding schemes for the top ten recipient countries. Distance learning scholarships in the early part of the 2000’s have considerably increased the number of students, particularly from Bangladesh, Tanzania and Ghana.

Figure 4. Commonwealth Scholarship awards 1960-2010; top ten recipient countries

13

http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/alumni/directory/

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A number of smaller agricultural training schemes have been organized by UK institutions, often with public and private funds. Two of these are described here, as examples, in some detail. Since 1993 the Rothamsted International Fellowship Programme has supported 134 Fellows from around the world to spend a period of time (6-12 months) at Rothamsted on projects focusing on agricultural science. The purposes of the scheme are to:

Promote the exchange of vital scientific research skills to help agricultural and environmental needs in developing and emerging countries

Assist in individual and institutional capacity building

Foster long-term partnerships between overseas research organisations and Rothamsted Research.

Fellowships are open to mid-career scientists who wish to pursue strategic and applied research, learn new techniques or undertake other studies in the agricultural sciences and are entirely funded by donations from charitable trusts, foundations and individuals. Since 1993 Rothamsted International Fellowships have been awarded to scientists from 30 developing and emerging countries (Figure 5). Of these, 61 Fellows came from China, India and Cuba, and in many cases, collaboration and contact has been maintained for further research projects and for joint publications in peer-reviewed science journals.

30% of scientists came from China, which along with India, Cuba and Russia, provided 67% of the Fellows.

Other countries included Brazil, Nigeria, Ghana, Hungary, Pakistan, Turkey and Ukraine.

The ages ranged between 25 and 48 years with a median of 36 years at the time of appointment

44% of the appointed Fellows were female.

Figure 5. Country of origin for Rothamsted International Agriculture fellows 1993 -2010

From 2005 -2011 the Rothamsted International African Fellows Programme supported 43 Fellows from Africa for placement around the UK, and across Europe, on projects focusing on agricultural research, funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. This scheme has now been closed.

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Since 2004, there have been six complete rounds of funding.

Applications have been from 36 of the 53 African countries (including island nations).

The scheme was oversubscribed, only 1 in 25 applications were successful

Average age of Fellows was 38 years

25% were women

Figure 6. Country of Origin for Rothamsted International Agriculture fellows 2004-2011

The Africa Land and Food Fellowship programme, delivered by the Royal Agricultural College (RAC) through the Africa Fellowship Trust was launched in 2005. Since then 45 fellows have been supported from eight countries in Africa who have experience in agriculture, food or natural resource exploitation and management; an interest in land reform; and a desire to make a strategic and sustainable contribution to Africa's development. Fellowships provide leadership training; the development of professional networks and supporting work experience, and study opportunities o the Master’s programme in International Rural Development at the RAC. Funding, £1m to date, has been provided by organisations such as Barclays Bank, the Garfield Weston Foundation, Imperial Tobacco, Anglo American and Ambrian Capital Bank. All of the Fellows have subsequently return to Africa and many are now making significant leadership contributions through their various occupations to managing change in food supply and security, farming, agribusiness, agricultural education and government. 3.4 Impact of UK investments in agri-food science for development There are a few published evaluations of UK research and training investments in agricultural research for development. The most significant examples identified are described here. An evaluation of the DFID £190m 10 year RNRRS programme found that ‘the quality of science was high, with some positive impacts on livelihoods’14. Individual projects did undertake significant monitoring and evaluation (M&E) but the M&E systems were not developed in a coherent manner. This made it difficult to assess the wider poverty impact of RNRRS and its relative costs and benefits. Regular independent M&E was recommended to support strategy-wide management. DFID’s review of the CSC’s programmes concluded that their work had ‘contributed effectively to DFID’s policies on post primary education’ but proposed further evaluation work to assess long-term impact and outcomes. An evaluation of the 27,000 individuals who have held Commonwealth Scholarships and Fellowships was carried out in 200815. A subset was

14

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/7/35242503.pdf 15

http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/evaluation/

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analysed for UKCDS by the CSC and of the respondents, 575 or 8% had awards in agriculture in its broadest definition Box 4 provides some summary statistics on the impact of this training, based on self-completed questionnaires.

A preliminary evaluation of the first 31 Rothamsted African Fellows to have completed their Fellowships and returned home has been carried out.16. All remained in science and 79% have been promoted or achieved professional recognition in some way. New skills and improved networking were gained by all Fellows and 79% submitted scientific papers for publications as a result of their placement. All fellows have maintained a mentoring relationship with their European Partners and 35% have applied for joint funding for follow-up work. Of the Fellows who had been back in their country for a year or more, 71% ranked their Fellowship as extremely useful. Focus on defining and describing impact from specific projects or from longer term, more complex research contributions will be greater now that funders have recognised and agreed a joint statement on impact the importance of impact 17e.g. HEFCE have highlighted that ‘research impact’ will be a significant part of their Research Excellence Framework (REF) from 2014 and their panel advice specifically references international development as an area where impact can be described. This, together with the RCUK requirements to demonstrate impact is rapidly focussing researcher efforts to clearly articulate the outputs, benefits and impact of UK funded research18. What is needed now is rapid development of meaningful methods to measure the impact of such capacity building on scientific and development objectives.

16

Rothamsted International African Fellows Programme, Making a Difference, GAT 2608 – GAT 2912, October 2008 Rothamsted International UK 17

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/kei/maximising/Pages/Impactstatement.aspx 18

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/kei/maximising/MeasuringImpact/Pages/home.aspx

Box 4. Evaluation of the CSFP agriculture scholars and fellows • 95% introduced new practices or innovations • 86% said they had an impact in the sector somewhere either on a project, political

or socio-economic level • 40% agriculture students had an impact in the health sector; not the case the

other way round (13% vice versa) • 26% felt they had influenced agric/rural productivity in some way; SSA and S Asia

35 and 31% respectively • Students from other disciplines also had impact on the agriculture sector e.g.

economics, education, business management and environment

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4. Summary 4.1 The role of universities and capacity building in agricultural research for

development Much UK agricultural research for development is relevant to building scientific capacity in partner institutions and countries. This is particularly true today where researcher advances in UK, for instance improvement of crops or livestock, can be translated more quickly to tropical crops and breeds through genomic research. Building these research links with researchers and institutions in LMICs will not only deliver benefits to their local agriculture, it will empower scientist to better participate in future, global innovation systems, and to begin to influence basic and translational research agendas towards their specific problems. The trend observed over the past 25 years from largely UK-based development research to greater partnership in projects with LMICs facilitates this development. UK research continues to benefit from this interaction through increased funding, a broadened more sustainable agricultural research base and the opportunity to work on problems of potential relevance to UK agriculture such as climate change mitigation and emerging pests and diseases. 4.2 Research trends Agricultural research for international development in the UK is now funded by a range of organisations and programmes. Since the completion of the RNRRS programme, DFID’s funding has diversified into support for research into use, collaboration with other research funders such as BBSRC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and investment in the CGIAR centres. Despite the requirements of the International Development Act (2002) that DFID put all research opportunities out to international tender, UK researchers continue to lead approximately 44% of all DFID research programmes. BBSRC has initiated joint programmes with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Indian Government, in addition to DFID, to ensure that collaborative funds cover both UK and LMIC participants. UK researchers have been particularly successful in attracting funding from development research relevant funds from the EU and various foundations. The evidence shows that the total amount awarded to UK organisations has increased over the last five years. Further, the new mix of funding opportunities since 2005, the end of the DFID RNRRS programme, supports a more diverse range of research. In particular, there has been greater investment in research to apply scientific advances in agricultural science directly to international development problems through translational research. For instance, advances in “-omics” sciences, marker-assisted breeding, molecular diagnostics and other areas has made the transfer of knowledge easier and methods from Northern crop and livestock research models to Southern targets, and has also accelerated research and development generally for new crop varieties, animal vaccines, pest and disease management strategies, and other interventions. This new support for translational research sits beside a longer UK tradition of more applied agricultural research for development, including work to improve local farming systems, crop production, animal husbandry, pest management, postharvest systems, and a particularly noteworthy UK contribution to innovation in participatory rural appraisal and research. It was not clear to the authors whether this growth in more technical, translational research has come at the expense of capacity in this more applied UK agri-food research tradition, but the decline in the last decade of university departments of agriculture and applied research in UK research centres has probably weakened UK capacity in this area. More work needs to be done to identify the role of UK scientists in projects, programmes and the funding sources of the directly applied activities, often in country, to make a more informed assessment.

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The broader scope today for development-relevant agricultural research facilitates the engagement of a larger UK agricultural science constituency. This has been reflected in applications for funding, e.g. from the SARID project, of the 186 eligible submissions, 51 UK institutions including 40 UK universities participated in submissions, 31% of the UK university sector. Many of these new participants were not “traditional” agricultural development research groups. The final 12 awards involved seven UK universities and six UK research institutes. Finally, while the focus of new UK funded agri-food research for development is on LMIC needs, its relevance to UK agricultural interests remains strong due to the convergence of Northern and Southern research needs relating to common challenges like climate change, water scarcity and shared international pests and disease threats, and to the way in which new “-omics” technologies make it possible to study similar important problems in both UK and tropical species. 4.3 Research partnership and development impact From the databases of projects which were analysed, there are some initial observations on the nature of research partnerships with LMICs that have evolved over recent decades. The pattern is one of many short-term projects distributed over a very wide range of countries and institutions. It is suggested that this approach may not have achieved the impact, both in scientific outputs and capacity strengthening, that a more focused effort would have done. However, insufficient evaluation of research investments was found to examine this hypothesis. Continuity of research links through series of projects appears to have occurred with a limited set of countries and institutions, like India and Kenya, where evidence might be sought for the benefits of long term support to research outputs, outcome and impact, and to capacity building. The role of the CGIAR, as a long-term facilitator of UK research and links with LMICs also emerges from the analysis and deserves particular investigation, as it continues to be a key bridge between UK institutions and LMIC research institutions. Overall, little information that measured the development impact of research interventions was found. Some very preliminary work comparing publications in African agriculture to patterns of UK research investment revealed no association. 4.4 Training Some of the research partnerships have included support for higher degree training, usually PhD or MSc, and there is a separate and large stream of HE funding that brings students from LMICs to UK for training in this sector. An important component of this are the Commonwealth Scholarships, funded by DFID. There are also many undergraduate and postgraduate programmes undertaken by students at different UK universities. While these overseas students in UK are monitored by HESA, categories used have not allowed analysis of levels of agricultural training or ultimate destinations and career paths. The analysis of the Commonwealth Scholarships data suggests there has been an increase in professional training in UK institutions for agriculture and related topics over recent years, but data cannot be extrapolated to interpret this trend more widely. The popularity of distance learning degrees from the UK has allowed for a greater number of registrations due to their lower cost and greater reach and flexibility.

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Professional training is clearly valuable to UK universities in terms of student fees and also has value in generating new research and partnerships for the future. However, its development benefits may be affected by a number of factors, including how appropriate the training is to national needs, the failure of some trainees to return to their national institutions (the so-called “brain drain”), the difficulties they may find their in continuing their research and building research careers. There is very little evaluation of the impact of professional training in agricultural development or any development sector. The Commonwealth Scholarships evaluation is one of the few that has looked, albeit qualitatively, at the development contributions in agriculture in LMICs that comes from UK-based training. The growth observed in distance learning raises other questions – how does this change the interactions between UK teachers and LMIC students and does this affect the potential of training to strengthen capacity or building research and training collaboration between UK and LMIC research?

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5. Conclusions and Recommendations Agricultural research relevant to development delivers societal benefits through a complex process of research inputs and outputs, leading to broader adoption, adaptation and scaling up to deliver positive research outcomes and ultimately impacts at the level of populations and the economy. But, as described in the introduction, it also benefits UK agriculture science, researchers and institutions by providing funding and relevant research opportunities. The many different UK programmes of investment in agricultural research and training for development assembled for this analysis do not constitute in any way a deliberate UK “strategy”, but they generate a pattern of research investment, in different kinds of research with different countries and partners, that is today the UK “footprint” in this area. As such, it is valuable to understand whether this pattern of activity is best suited to UK’s international development and national interests? Up until five years ago, the principle flow of UK support to agricultural research in LMICs came from DFID, via investments in the UK science base through RNRRS and in the CGIAR. What has made this relationship more complex in recent years has been:

the emergence of BRICs, from being beneficiaries of agricultural research to being

partners with the UK in agricultural research LMICs – in some cases they still operate

in both capacities.

the new collaboration of DFID and BBSRC which reflects the growing opportunity of

plant and animal science to contribute to international development.

the investment of Foundations and philanthropy in the UK science base to address

global challenges in agriculture.

These new connections have brought a range of new resources to bear on UK agriculture research for development. As wealthy countries and BRICS collaborate more on shared problems in agricultural research, such as increasing yields, controlling pests and diseases and combating climate change, agricultural research extends beyond national development /aid agencies into other government funded institutions. DFID-BBSRC collaboration has accessed the breadth of the UK plant and animal science research community and the research, attracted new funding partners such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and BRICS (India), as exemplified in the new DFID-BBSRC SCPRD programme. Structures are in place to support this larger collaboration, including UKCDS and the new Global Food Security programme, and the question emerges, “how do we make this changing investment strategy most effective for UK contributions to agricultural research for development?” Figure 7 tries to capture the new configuration of agricultural research funding and training. Included in this figure are additional, important links with other bodies which are covered in other parts of the Food Research Partnership study, notably other developed countries, the BRICS (the databases we evaluated included funding to India, but not substantially to other BRICS and UK Higher Education superstructures. This figure illustrates the diversity of sources of UK investment now in agricultural research for development and the potential value of close coordination of investments, and of understanding and nurturing the best relations with key external players like the CGIAR, BRICs and other developed countries. Below are four recommendations for action. Cutting across all of these is a need for better monitoring, evaluation and learning of the impact of different kinds of investment, across the UK and international development objectives identified at the beginning of this report.

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This preliminary analysis has helped to reveal precisely what the UK has invested in, and this is a useful first step, as it shows where we should be looking to see the impact of UK investment. For instance, a number of countries and institutions have received particularly continuous investment, and these might be a particular focus for evaluation, if not priorities for collaboration in future.. Specifically, we recommend action in four areas: 1. Improving partnerships with national programmes in LMICs The UK cannot invest in research partnerships across all LMICs. It has been shown that some research and training investment to date has been focussed on particular countries and institutions in LMICs – this may have built up some improved capacity which may help achieve UK Food Research Partnership objectives in those countries, although the quality of the partnerships built are unknown. It is recommended that several of these countries with a history of strong research links be selected for inclusion in the Food Research Partnership plan for future collaboration. Some deeper analysis of databases on the nature of research links and some further evaluation of their impact to date may help with this process. Future programmes must include comprehensive monitoring and evaluation to ensure best value, transparency, maximum impact and learning for future investments. One approach to inform prioritisation would be to construct a matrix of potential country partners and criteria for their selection. These would include some measure of investment to date and the resulting outputs, but also scoring relative to the key objectives of UK agricultural research e.g. the value of LMIC national research programmes to achieving UK priorities and the potential for investment in those countries to best deliver UK international development, foreign diplomacy or trade objectives. Direct personal contacts through students and fellowships are widely reported by UK universities and research institutions as the basis for sustainable and fruitful collaborations. Mechanisms to maintain or strengthen these links should be considered including the development of other incentives such as two way exchanges and multi-site degree courses. Providing and promoting information on research funding opportunities resulted in high success levels for UK institutions so this approach should continue. 2. Partnership with the CGIAR The CGIAR emerges as a key facilitator of UK research links and activities with LMICs. It is also linked to UK funding and research in a number of different, possibly complementary ways, although the potential synergy of UK untied investment and special project collaboration deserves closer analysis. A strategic examination is recommended, using the databases available, of where UK CGIAR links have proven most valuable in addressing UK priorities for agriculture and development. This should recognise the recent radical change in CGIAR strategy with the establishment of its Strategic Research Framework and CGIAR Consortium headquartered in Europe. A number of the new cross-cutting programmes, which will be seeking partnerships from advanced research institutes, are particularly suited to UK agricultural research priorities, including cereal improvement, climate change and the agriculture/health interface.

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3. Investment in professional training Training in agricultural research is a substantial UK activity and brings considerable financial benefits to UK universities while building loyal partnerships for future agricultural research in countries which will grow stronger in this area. This review has focused on a range of specific training initiatives but there is much more that has not been assessed. However, UK scientists have reported that this activity is under threat from both immigration restrictions on overseas students (or the perceptions of UK restrictions) and competition from universities in other developed countries who offer cheaper fees and the growth of universities abroad in LMICs. Imaginative responses to this, including distance learning in agricultural research, have emerged and been very successful, and a number of UK institutions are, by building capacity for LMICs to provide their own training, creating long term training partnerships as well, which will secure a UK role in producing future professionals. Because of the rapid change in this area, it is recommended that a rapid assessment is made to assess the impact of professional training in agriculture, and to evaluate the benefits for both UK and LMICs, drawing on and improving methodologies such as those used for the evaluation of the Commonwealth Scholarships and other programmes mentioned above. Based on a better understanding of the value of this investment, they can then work together to prioritise training investments. This process may benefit for coordination with similar analysis of training in other sectors including health and environment. 4. Coordination of UK agri-food research for development This study has begun to reveal the “footprint” of UK research in LMICs, its emphasis in different countries and different subjects, and its continuities and discontinuities over time. While this overall activity has distinctive features, it in no way describes a “strategy”. Rather it is the product of a wide number of separate, unlinked investments, often overlapping in countries and even institutions. What is needed now is to understand whether a more strategic, coordinated approach might improve achievement of UK objectives in agriculture research for development. Building valuable research partnerships with LMICs is valuable to the UK, and the existing project-based and training activities from the investors illustrated in Figure 7 are all in themselves too short term to achieve this without some degree of coordination. This favours a more strategic approach. There could be some immediate benefits; less duplication of effort in areas of focus and less wastage of resources in areas where a few one-off investments will achieve neither research nor capacity building objectives. Therefore it is recommended that establishment of a coordinating mechanism involving UK investors, but linking with beneficiaries and other investors, with strong UK leadership, undertakes an assessment and then develops a strategic approach that better delivers UK objectives.

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Figure 7. UK research funding investments in agriculture research and international development

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APPENDIX 1 Further Details of Databases Analysed 1 The Wellcome Trust Information was provided by the Wellcome Trust as an Excel spreadsheet Animal Health in the Developing World: summary of awards 2004 - 2010 The overall aim was to fund research on livestock diseases that impact significantly on human health and wellbeing in low- and middle-income countries. Proposals that addressed one or more of the following scientific areas in relation to livestock diseases of low- and middle-income countries were particularly encouraged:

livestock epidemiology and/or the natural history and dynamics of infection and disease in low- and middle-income countries (wildlife was only considered in the context of major reservoirs of human or livestock disease)

exploiting genomics (a) for drug and vaccine development, and (b) to understand the host protective immune response, disease resistance and pathogenesis

development of cheap, effective, feasible diagnostics, where possible, adapting currently available products

animal-to-animal transmission and animal-to-human transmission. Grants awarded Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) a serious and emerging plague of small ruminants in developing countries: Epidemiology, transmission, host range and pathogenicity of the virus in West Africa £836,408 for 36 months Professor Dirk U Pfeiffer, Royal Veterinary College, United Kingdom Professor Thomas Barrett, Institute for Animal Health, United Kingdom Dr Adama Diallo, IAEA Laboratories, Austria Dr Emmanuel Couacy-Hymann, Central Laboratory for Animal Diseases, Côte d’Ivoire Dr Oumou Sagare, Laboratoire Central Veterinaire, Mali Characterisation of plant-based oral vaccines against peste des petits ruminants and development of a cost-effective delivery system £247,774 awarded for 30 months Dr Michael D Baron, Institute for Animal Health, United Kingdom Professor Melkote Subba Rao Shaila, Indian Institute of Science, India Dr Geraldine Taylor, Institute for Animal Health, United Kingdom Adapting recombinant anti-tick vaccines to livestock in Africa £1,111,792 awarded for 60 months Professor Frans Jongejan, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Dr Jose de la Fuente, University of Castilla la Mancha, Spain Professor Albert Neitz, University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr Anabella Gaspar, University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr Peter Willadsen, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia

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Professor Mohamed Darghouth, École Nationale de Médecine Vétérinaire, Tunisia Dr Enoch Koney, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana Development of effective live vaccines for prevention of anaplasmosis and babesiosis £1,068,974 awarded for 60 months Professor Guy H Palmer, Washington State University, USA Dr Monica Florin-Christensen, INTA-Castelar, Argentina Dr Juan Mosqueda, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias (INIFAP), Mexico Professor Anthony Barbet, University of Florida, USA Dr Marisa Farber, INTA-Castelar, Argentina Dr Kelly Brayton, Washington State University, USA Professor Wendy Brown, Washington State University, USA Dr Audrey Lau, Washington State University, USA Professor Terry McElwain, Washington State University, USA A genomics approach to understanding the immunopathology of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP): Improvement of current live vaccines and the development of next generation vaccines £1,609,957 awarded for 60 months Professor Declan J McKeever, Moredun Research Institute, United Kingdom Dr Evans Taracha, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya Dr Hezron Wesonga, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Nairobi Dr Benedict Lema, Animal Diseases Research Institute, Tanzania Professor Joachim Frey, University of Bernm Switzerland Professor David G E Smith, Moredun Research Institute/University of Glasgow, United Kingdom Professor David W Taylor, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom Novel approaches and technologies to reduce the impact of nematode parasitism on the livelihoods of small-holder farmers of sheep and goats in Africa £281,536 awarded for 42 months Professor Peter J Waller, National Veterinary Institute, Sweden Dr David Smith, Moredun Research Institute, United Kingdom Professor Graham Medley, University of Warwick, United Kingdom Dr George Grey, ILRI, Kenya Mr Adriano Francis Vatta, Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI),South Africa Professor Jakobus Eloff, University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr Ernest Lacey, Microbial Screening Technologies, Sydney, Australia Dr Brian Perry, Consultant African swine fever virus: Development of vaccines and epidemiological investigations £2,200,000 awarded for 60 months Professor Dirk U Pfeiffer, Royal Veterinary College, United Kingdom Dr Linda Dixon, Institute for Animal Health, United Kingdom Dr Wilna Vosloo, Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, South Africa Dr Jose M Escribano, INIA-Madrid, Spain Dr Maria Luisa Salas, Centro de Biología Molecular-Madrid, Spain Dr Emmanuel Albina, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), France Dr Robert Parkhouse, Gulbenkian Institute for Science, Portugal Dr Haru Takamatsu, Institute of Animal Health, United Kingdom Dr Covadonga Alonso, INIA-Madid, Spain

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Dr Enrique Tabares, Universidad Autonoma Madrid, Spain Dr Javier Rodriguez, Centro de Biología Molecular-Madrid, Spain Control of schistosomiasis in the lakes region of China by eliminating parasites in livestock: Combined treatment strategy employing praziquantel andadministration of an anti-schistosoma japonica plasmid DNA vaccine £222,315 awarded for 12 months Professor Donald A Harn, Harvard School of Public Health, USA Dr Zheng Feng, Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai, China Professor Yinchang Zhu, Jiangsu Institute of Parasitic Diseases, China Optimisation and field testing of a practical vaccine against Taenia solium cysticercosis in pigs £806,729 awarded for 60 months Dr Marshall Lightowlers, University of Melbourne, Australia Professor Armando E Gonzalez, Universidad de San Marcos, Peru Dr Stanny Geerts, Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde, Belgium Dr Ana Flisser Universidad Nacional Auton de Mexico, Mexico Professor Andre Zoli, University of Dschang, Cameroon Mr Charles Guaci, University of Melbourne, Australia An integrated approach for the development of sustainable methods to control tropical theileriosis £2,133,050 awarded for 60 months Professor W Ivan Morrison, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom Professor Dirk Dobbelaere, University of Bern, Switzerland Professor Andrew Tait, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom Professor Graham Medley, University of Warwick, United Kingdom Dr Evans Taracha, ILRI, Kenya Dr Mohamed Darghouth, Ecole Nationale de Medecine Veterinaire, France Dr Brian Shiels, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom Professor Declan McKeever, Moredun Research Institute, United Kingdom Dr Elizabeth Glass, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Roslin Institute, United Kingdom Dr Gordon Langsley, Institut Pasteur, France Dr Tulin Karagenc, Adnan Menderes University, Turkey Environmental changes in Africa and tsetse habitat fragmentation: Epidemiological consequences and perspectives for control £356,555 awarded for 36 months Dr Stephane de la Rocque, CIRAD-EMVT, France Dr Peter Van Den Bossche, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium Professor David J Rogers, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Dr Issa Sibibe, Centre International de Recherche-Développement sur l’Elevage en zone Subhumide (CIRDES), Burkina Faso Dr Joseph Mubanga, Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Zambia Dr Tshepo Matjila, University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr Sophie Thevenon, CIRDES, Burkina Faso Mr Idrissa Kabore, CIRDES, Burkina Faso Dr Jeremy Bouyer, CIRDES, Burkina Faso Bovine tuberculosis in the developing world £2,160,022 awarded for 60 months Professor Douglas B Young, Imperial College London, United Kingdom Professor Glyn Hewinson, Imperial College London, United Kingdom

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Dr Howard Engers, Armauer Hansen Research Institute, Ethiopia Dr Dan Bradley, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Dr Evans Taracha, ILRI, Kenya Dr Jakob Zinsstag, Swiss Tropical Institute, Switzerland Dr Stephen Gordon, Veterinary Laboratories Agency, United Kingdom Dr Richard Bishop, ILRI, Kenya Dr Abraham Aseffa, Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI), Ethiopia Dr Martin Vordermeier, Veterinary Laboratories Agency, United Kingdom Dr Melese Getu, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia 2 Collaborative Research Programmes Sustainable Agriculture Research for International Development (SARID), is a £7m collaborative research programme between BBSRC and DFID funding 12 projects to tackle some of the most damaging and widespread pests, diseases and harsh environmental conditions which can devastate crop yields across the developing world. SARID was announced in 2006 and the first round of funding was launched in February 2008. All projects are collaborations between UK scientists and scientists from institutions and Universities across Africa, Asia and South America. BBSRC provided two databases for analysis A) all awards B) all applications Combating Infectious Diseases of Livestock for International Development (CIDLID) is a £13m research programme announced in 2008 to tackle the significant and growing threat posed by livestock diseases to global food security and livelihoods in developing Combating Infectious Diseases in Livestock for International Development (CIDLID) is a collaboration of the BBSRC, DFID and the Scottish Government. A total of 16 research projects are being funded by the initiative, which aims to address some of the most prevalent, damaging and costly diseases of livestock in developing countries, such as Goat Plague, African swine fever and liver fluke. UK researchers are working with more than 20 overseas institutions across India, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa and Kenya to find sustainable solutions to animal disease threats and help to build scientific capacity in developing countries. BBSRC provided one database of all awards for analysis 3 Department for International Development The Research4Development research portal is managed and hosted on behalf of DFID by CIMRC (Communication & Information Management Resource Centre), a consortium led by CAB International to develop R4D and promote the communication and dissemination activities of DFID Central Research Department. R4D was created as a synthesis of DFID's project and outputs databases. As of May 2010 it contained over 5000 project records and 24,500 research outputs as well as hundreds of associated content pages, news articles and case studies of research impact. A single database was provided by CIMRC in July 2010, containing details of projects and programmes that were extracted using the following criteria: Many of the projects were funded under the ten year programme for Renewable Natural Resources (RNRRS) Parent topic: Sustainable Agriculture Child topics: Agricultural Economics; Agricultural Innovation; Crops; Fisheries, Aquaculture and Fish Genetics; Food Security; Livestock Production; Miscellaneous and Research Into Use Information for project awards from 1973 -2004

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Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) The objective of DFID's RNRRS was to generate new knowledge and to promote its uptake and application such that the livelihoods of poor people are improved through better management of renewable natural resources. It addresses the knowledge needs of poor people whose livelihoods are dependent on natural resources production systems in semi-arid areas, high potential areas, hillsides, tropical moist forests, and at the forest-agriculture interface, the land/water interface and the peri-urban interface. The breadth of the strategy programme reflected the wide variety of environments in which poor people live in poorer countries and the multiple routes by which research can reduce poverty. This programme came to an end in March 2006. An evaluation of the RNRRS has been carried out. The goals of the Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) for 1995-2005 were the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of economic growth and the mitigation of environmental problems. The strategy aimed to achieve economical and environmentally sustainable enhancement of productive capacity in the renewable natural resources sectors through contracted out management of competitive research funds. This evaluation is an objective assessment of the extent to which the programmes have delivered the agreed outputs of the strategy, the identification of components which have made, or have strong potential to make an impact on poverty, and the lessons from programme and project cycle management. Three aspects have been evaluated: quality of science, impact or potential impact on poverty, and quality of management.

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APPENDIX 2 WEB OF SCIENCE AND PROJECT DATABASE ANALYSIS OF UK-AFRICAN AGRI-FOOD RESEARCH LINKS Purpose To understand the nature and change in research links and outputs between UK and African institutions in agri-food science for development as a basis for guiding future investment in a) UK funded collaborative research programmes b) Building and supporting capacity of African research institutions and scientists. Approach The analysis would use basic statistical analysis and “text mining” and “research network” analysis (as developed by Richard Wadsworth) to characterise and visualize research collaborations. Two sources of data will be used: UK/EU-funded projects involving UK researchers and development partners (already compiled by UKCDS) and Web of Science records of research publications. Questions/hypotheses – Some of the questions to be explored are presented below, with possible, specific hypothesis on the right Using project databases Question Hypothesis What is the change in the number and type of UK institutions leading or collaborating in UK/EU funded programmes on agri-food research that is focussed on international development over time.

Changes in UK funding and policy have led to an increase in the type and number of UK institutions winning agri-food research projects

What are the trends in the funding and project numbers and topics won by UK institutions over time. Are some institutes ‘lost’ and new ones enter the ‘market’? Do any institutions dominate? What type of research is funded?

Institutional type and diversity increases and decreases with funding policy and topic changes

Which developing countries has the UK worked with over time (10 year intervals 80’s, 90’s, 00’s).

The number of developing countries, institutions, UK funding totals and projects awards has increased over time

What is the coordinating/collaborating role of international institutes in developing countries with the UK and developing countries e.g. CGIAR (to be classified as separate ‘country’).

International institutes act as a key facilitator of collaboration between UK and developing country researchers

Has the trend of UK institutions take a leading role (as measured by principle investigator or £ received) in UK funded programmes changed over time

UK funders are increasing the number of project lead role awards and money to non-UK institutions

Using Web of Science – Sub Saharan Africa Focus Question Hypothesis What kinds of links do African agricultural researchers make through projects and publications with other researchers?

African researchers make more links with Northern partners than Southern partners

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How have research links changed over time? As a result of increased training, capacity and awareness particularly overseas, research links have grown

How have links with northern partners changed?

Links with UK institutions were initially high, but are now a lower proportion of all research links

How have links changed in different subject areas: plant science, animal science?

Networks have both increased and decreased over time, largely following trends in Northern research interests and associated funding programmes

How have links changed across institutions, are there any key institutions that dominate or “hold” networks together?

Distribution will be highly skewed towards a few big African research institutions “preferred” by external collaborators. The CGIAR Centres may be key network linker both N-S and S-S

Key assumptions The key assumption is that Web of Science will capture well agri-food research published in peer reviewed journals, which assumes that their coverage of African peer reviewed journals is good. Also, this assumes that peer reviewed journal publications are representative of African research outputs, in the same way as Northern peer reviewed journal outputs and in the same way over time. For instance, an increase in journal publication could accompany a decrease in research outputs if government institute publications were the major outlet, and these declined while peer reviewed journal publications rose slightly. Project databases of UKCDS members DFID, BBSRC and the Wellcome Trust are expected to cover relevant funding. The EU data is subject to the limitations of the CORDIS retrieval process. Possible approaches 1. Web of Science The full set of publications would be subsampled to obtain a large, representative sample of papers in agri-food science that have at least one author from an African institution. Papers would be identified by keywords: e.g. food, agriculture, crop(s), livestock. Network webs would be made based on researcher/author and these would be colour coded as Northern and Southern. Analysis of links (lines) would show the patterns of N-S and S-S research links. This analysis could be done over time – perhaps with graphs in ten year intervals: 80s, 90s, 00s. This analysis could be done for different subject areas by keyword search/text mining and subject “clustering” tools – e.g. animal, plant, pest, soil science. This analysis could be done for different countries of employment for the partners, e.g. to compare UK-Africa networks over time. This analysis could be done for different institutions, rather than scientists, to identify key network nodal links, and to examine networks with them in and removed, for example, the influence of a international GGIAR institute such as ILRI in Kenya.

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2. Project databases Project databases that include Agri-food topics are available in Excel format from DFID (8000+ entries), a Wellcome Trust Livestock programme, two BBSRC/DFID programmes (Livestock and crops) and UK participation in EU FP6 and 7 with developing countries. They include a full range of fields including abstracts and funding allocations. These will be integrated to identify simple trends and rankings. Some of the questions and hypotheses posed above would lend themselves to simple histograms or timelines derived from the data in these spreadsheets. Other questions would benefit from being visualized as network webs. Of particular value would be to see the total North-South network webs with and without international institutions (e.g. CGIAR centres) added, to reveal their role as “linking agents”. These are initial ideas – A consultation with Richard Wadsworth would be required to agree the best approach and actual analyses and presentation will be agreed by mutual consent between Richard Wadsworth and Andrée Carter. From a discussion of Andrée Carter, Charlie McLaren, UKCDS and Jeff Waage, LIDC at the Wellcome Trust 26 August

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APPENDIX 3 Network Analysis and Text Mining Richard Wadsworth Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Lancaster, rawad@ceh.ac.uk Assembling the Documents Two sets of documents were processed; from the funding database and from a collection of scientific papers. The funding database was supplied as an Excel spreadsheet and required only minimal pre-processing; just the selection of the appropriate columns and export to csv files. The “scientific” documents were all obtained from the web-of-knowledge by searching for a agricultural topics and specifying Africa within the address. The exact boundary of the topic “agriculture” is difficult to define, one “edge” is somewhere on a continuum from digestibility to nutrition to health another “edge” is from crop pest to entomology to biodiversity. Where a decision had to be made as to whether a paper should be included a conservative approach was adopted (for example, I have rejected papers on crop pests which appear to relate entirely to their entomological rather than control and more than 20 papers about the vitamin A content of oil palm that appeared to me to be more about human health than agriculture). The search strategy was gradually expanded during the search phase. Initially the search terms related to the broadest categories; “agriculture” and “farming”, however, this search did not generate many papers. The search terms were therefore expanded to include more specific terms relating to crops, livestock and farming activities. Crops were divided into:

cereals; rice, maize, millet, sorghum, tef etc.,

root crops; yams, sweet potatoes, cassava, etc.

vegetables; spinach, pumpkin, okra etc.

Fruit; citrus, orange, lemon, limes, mango, banana, pineapple, plantain etc.

Oils / seeds; oil palm, coconuts, peanut, groundnut, sesame, peas, beans etc.

Cash crops; coffee, cocoa, tea, vines etc

Livestock;

cows, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, aquaculture, etc.

Farming activities:

bush-fallow, swidden, slash-and-burn, tillage, fertilisers, pests, pesticides, weeds, weeding, herbicides, irrigation etc.

Once a relevant paper had been identified by one of the search terms the titles of the other papers by each of the authors were inspected. This approach was only used where the author name was distinctive, and the list of papers seemed to have been generated by one individual. If the paper title appeared relevant to the topic agriculture it was included and this in turn might lead to other people. This technique of following authors led to some inconsistencies where an author moved permanently or temporarily out of Africa; it is possible that some inconsistencies remain in the database. Abstracts were downloaded from web-of-knowledge into the bibliographic database Endnote. One key activity was the identification and removal of duplicate records. Records from Endnote were exported to Excel before text mining, and were manually searched to identify and remove all text specifying that the abstract was copyright such as after (c),

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copyright etc and sometimes some text before as in “This work is copyright ...”. The published Elsevier uses 12 subtly different phrases to identify work from its journals. 2417 references were found and processed. Network Analysis – Methodology Network analysis was performed using UCINET (Borgatti et al 2002) and the graphics produced in NetDraw. Although it is possible to import data into UCINET from Excel files, in most cases text files were generated (using a C program) in the specific “DL” format used by Ucinet. Data on links between people was complicated by the fact that sometimes the address was embedded in the “notes” field and sometimes in an “author address” field. In about 2/3 of cases the address visible in web-of-knowledge did not transfer successfully to Endnote (the bibliographic database used to hold the records); a certain amount of manual searching and editing was required to generate a country attribution for all authors. In the case of the countries it is necessary to check for variants in spelling, for example “Ivory Coast”, “Cote d’Ivoire” and “Cote Ivorie” and changes over time, for example “Zaire” and “DRC”. The same issue of name variants occurs with people, especially with regards to how many initials are used, but although in some cases it is almost certain that two names are variants for the same person it is impossible to be certain and I have not attempted to remove duplicate names. The converse problem of two authors having the same name is known to occur but has been left. Initially I didn’t realise that the “times cited” and “cited reference” fields were not synonyms requiring a second assessment of the citation record. Networks may have nodes that are all of one type (eg between people or between countries) or have nodes of two different types (eg words and topics). In both cases the strength of the relationship between nodes can be characterised. Text Mining Text mining was performed on two sets of documents; project descriptions from the funding data base and the collection of scientific papers where one of the authors had an African address. The methods used are identical in both cases. Text Mining Methodology Two method have been applied, a PCA and fuzzy classification of text overlap and LDA. Both the methods use the “bag of words” assumption; that is they characterise each document as just a list of words. Some experiments have been done using a “stemming” algorithm. This is intended to reduce each word to it’s appropriate stem, for example reducing a plural “changes” to “change”, also to reduce past and future tenses to the present tense and so on. Stemming English turns out to be rather tricky and the results of text mining after stemming were not noticeably easier to interpret and so this has not been performed on the agricultural dataset. The “topics” found by both methods are characterised by lists of words and documents associated with the topics, the process of generating an appropriate label to characterise each topic is entirely manual.

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PCA and fuzzy classification of text overlap This is used primarily to visualise the relationship between the documents.

Each document is converted into a single column of terms (removing line breaks and all punctuation). On small data sets it is relatively easy to look for short phrases (bi-grams and tri-grams) that should be treated as single terms, such as, geographic locations, eg “South Africa” species names, eg “Zea mays” or phenomenon, eg “climate change”; this has not been done with the agricultural abstracts.

The statistical distribution of words is skewed, roughly half the terms only appear once but about 4% of the entire corpus consists of the term “the”. Words that appear only once are removed from the analysis; common “stop words” (such as “the”, “and”, “a”) and some common verbs (such as “very”, “often”) are removed.

A matrix of document versus terms is constructed with the cells containing the number of times that particular word (term) appears in a document. This matrix is extremely sparse.

Each word in the matrix is weighted using the “tf.idf” scheme (Robertson & Jones 1976). The weight has two components the effect being that a word that appears in all documents has a zero weight, but a word appearing frequently in a few short documents has a high weight:

Wij = ji

i

n

D

n

nln

Eq 1.

Where Wij is the weight of the ith word in the jth document ni is the number of times the word appears in the jth document Σni is the total length of the jth document. D is the total number of documents nj is the number of documents containing the ith word The conceptual overlap between every pair of documents is calculated, this allows the idea that document A is a sub-set of document B to be expressed (unlike measures of distance where A is as far from B as B is from A). We use the measure of overlap suggested by Bouchon-Meunier et al (1996) for non-ordered qualitative domains:

O(A,B) = Eq. 2 Where Wja is weight of word “j” in document A, and Wjb is the weight of that word in document B. O(A,B) can vary from 1 when “A” is a perfect sub-set of “B” to zero when there is no overlap (no terms occur in both A and B). The calculated overlaps form an n by n matrix (where n is the number of documents). A number of data-reduction algorithms can be used to visualise the relationship between the documents; PCA (principle component analysis) is usually used as the relative distance between each “point” has some meaning.

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A fuzzy classifier (k-means) is applied to the PCA scores to identify which documents are “central” to which groups and which terms are highly associated with which groups. LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) This employs the LDA algorithm published by Blei et al (2003). The underlying method assumes that documents are made up of one or more topics, and that words are associated with one or more topics. As we can observe the relationship between words and documents we can infer what topics exist. In practice the method is somewhat involved mathematically and makes a number of assumptions as to appropriate statistical distributions to sample from; the Dirichlet distribution being particularly convenient. LDA is a development of pLSA (probabilistic latent semantic analysis) (Hoffmann 1999) which was developed to account for some of the limitations of latent semantic indexing (LSI) (Deerwester et al., 1990) The input to LDA is a matrix of words by documents (in our case after remove rare words and stop words) and the output is two matrices one relating words to topics the other documents to topics. References Blei D.M., Ng A.Y. & Jordan M.I. 2003. Latent dirichlet allocation. Journal of machine Learning Research 3 993-1022. Borgatti S.P., Everett M.G. & Freeman L.C. 2002. Ucinet 6 for Windows: Software for social network analysis. Harvard: Analytic Technologies. Bouchon-Meunier B., Rifqi M. & Bothorel S. 1996. Towards general measures of comparison of fuzzy objects. Fuzzy sets and systems. 84 143-153 Deerwester S., Dumais S.T. Furnas G.W., Landauer T.K. & Harshman R. 1990. Indexing by latent semantic analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 41. 1990. Hofmann T. 1999. Probabilistic latent semantic analysis. UAI’99 Stockholm, Sweden. Robertson, S.E., Spärck Jones, K., 1976, "Relevance weighting of search terms", Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 27(3), 129-46.