Introduction
This Review critically assesses IRRI’s science and management to ensure that IRRI can continue to fulfil both its, and the CGIAR’s, mission for rice. It is a forward-looking review. Also, because it takes more than ten years for the design, creation and adoption of new varieties and associated technologies, any review of an institute like IRRI needs to look ahead at least ten to fifteen years to assess the appropriateness of today’s activities.
As it began this 6th EPMR, the Panel was concerned that the case for research to produce more rice and therefore the need for a $30 million-a-year Centre such as IRRI, was unclear. It has therefore re-examined this situation and concludes that, indeed, the need for continuing research to produce more rice for at least the coming decades is fully justified and the case for a role for IRRI is compelling (Chapter 1).
IRRI today is faced with dilemmas on a scale probably never experienced previously. There are the opportunities and challenges associated with the extraordinary developments in rice genomics that have developed outside the CGIAR System; the increasing use of transgenic plants; and the potential impact of intellectual property rights affecting germplasm, tools and genes. There are major developments in many other relevant areas of research, such as modelling, spatial analysis systems, and information technology, just to mention a few that have to be accommodated. Simultaneously, within the CGIAR, Centres are faced with decreases in core budgets. All these issues need to be managed within the context of the increasing competitiveness of global science and growth of Asian economies and it is certain that these issues will significantly influence the future of IRRI and its role in rice research.
The 5th EPMR already could see some of these issues emerging and concluded that IRRI needed to position itself appropriately within the emerging biotechnology environment; strengthen its spatial modelling capability; and internally, to embark on a period of stabilization - to enable a newly-appointed Director General (DG) to assume control after a period of some management turmoil and, in this context, to keep the matrix management structure in place, albeit with some fine-tuning to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.
Much has been accomplished since that Review. Under the new DG appointed in 1998, IRRI has responded effectively to the changing environment for rice. IRRI today continues to be a major player in the field of rice research: its scientific reputation is strong; it has an enviable cadre of highly qualified staff at both the national and international levels; it has first class facilities; and an excellent reputation with clients. It is financially sound, with substantial reserves.
The recommendations of the Sixth EPMR build on IRRI’s re-assessed comparative advantages in the world of rice today and in the coming decade: a worldwide, politically neutral curator and disseminator of rice knowledge, a unique entry into the major rice producing areas, and a worldwide networking capability with which to advance the cause of rice as a major force in poverty alleviation which, despite IRRI’s successes of the last four decades, remains its central task. The external environment is changing rapidly too: the revolution in communications, the sequencing of the rice genome and the genomics capabilities arising therefrom, and the growing scientific capabilities of other NARS, ARIs and the private sector, all of whom are ‘enablers’ to be harnessed in the cause of feeding the poor (Chapter 1).
IRRI’s role is central to this endeavour and it has successfully leveraged its relatively small investment over the years into a worldwide impact on rice through its knowledge dissemination, linkages and partnerships with a wide variety of consortia, including the NARS, and, now, with some links also to the private sector. Maintaining, strengthening and expanding these partnerships remains key to IRRI’s ability to extend its impact to alleviate poverty in the future. IRRI cannot match the financial resource inputs that others can put into rice research but it can, indeed must, take advantage of its unique comparative advantages to leverage its limited resource base and justify its role (Chapter 6).
In facing this future, IRRI goes forward on a good record of achievements over the past five years, which confirms its standing as a highly competent provider of quality and relevant solutions to rice research problems. Its track record and specific priorities for the future are now outlined.
Research for Favourable Environments
The irrigated environments produce the bulk of the rice that elevates farmer incomes and feeds the urban poor and many of the rural landless. For this reason, IRRI rightly continues to place as much emphasis on improving productivity gains from irrigated systems as on non-favourable environments. Some priorities have changed in emphasis, but IRRI remains committed to increasing the productivity of irrigated rice systems through combined breeding and natural resource management (NRM) strategies. Breeding achievements have been maintained, with over a quarter of the new varieties released through national programmes having IRRI parents. In the future, more socio-economic analyses will be needed to assess the relative impact of breeding work on grain quality traits, particularly in the high yielding hybrid varieties. IRRI will continue to work on a range of breeding strategies for combining high yield with biotic and abiotic stress resistance, in inbreds, New Plant Types (NPT) and hybrid lines.
Earlier concern for possible yield decline on very high-input, intensive irrigated production systems has been solved through thorough investigative studies and development of appropriate nutrient management systems. IRRI now believes that site-specific nutrient management coupled with integrated pest management (IPM) is the key to sustainable, high yielding production. There has been a comprehensive campaign for reducing nitrogen and agrochemical input-use in the intensive cropping regions, together with a range of water saving technologies to reduce input costs significantly. This has win-win benefits for farmers, consumers and the environment. The Irrigated Rice Research Consortium (IRRC) has grown in scope as a mechanism for research collaboration with the NARS. Its role should increase further in the future as the main delivery channel for the Programme. The Panel’s vision for Programme 2 is thus to continue to focus on overall productivity in irrigated environments, harnessing the IRRC to accelerate and enhance this process with more use of IT, biotechnology and GIS. Greater emphasis on water-saving technologies with appropriate plant varieties remains a high priority. Improvements in post-harvest rice processing can be expected to result from improvements in rice production standards in these intensive cropping regions (Chapter 3).
Research for Unfavourable Environments
IRRI focuses its resources on improvements in productivity and sustainability across the full range of rice ecosystems. It has increased its emphasis on these fragile rice production environments that comprise the rainfed lowland, flood-prone, and upland agro-ecosystems in the period under review. In spite of the enormous variability in environments, primarily with respect to agro-hydrology, a few target environments were defined and improved varieties and NRM technologies have been developed with the NARS in the CURE consortium. It was found that varieties have a wider adaptability in these environments than expected. Varieties have been adopted by farmers and the process of adoption is ongoing. As a result of several country programmes and consortia in which IRRI participates, rice productivity in countries such as Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and portions of eastern India has increased. The Panel commends IRRI for the quality of the science and the results being obtained and supports the approach taken in the CURE programme that is based on equal partnership with the NARS.
In the future, this programme will need even more emphasis because the NARS have less capacity to work in the unfavourable systems comprising much of the rice growing area. In the rainfed lowlands, chances for improvement are higher than for flooded and non flooded upland systems. In the future, this programme will focus more on the breeding of new parental lines for NARS, and the identification of genes for tolerance for a range of abiotic and biotic stresses. These environments are also where the benefit of added attention to micronutrient enriched rice will have greatest pay-off. In these areas in particular, IRRI can have impact in improving women’s plight, through targeted technologies and improved nutrition. Finally, the Programme will focus more attention on developing the NRM technologies needed for specific environments based on analyses of site-specific requirements (Chapter 4).
International Rice Genebank Collection and Functional Genomics
IRRI has continued to host and develop the International Rice Genebank Collection to a high standard and has gained accolades for its work in this area. With the opportunities that have emerged from the sequencing of the rice genome and genomics, the value of this collection held in trust for the world can now be mined and disseminated in a way that was impossible even five years ago. As IRRI moves ahead it has new opportunities to curate and disseminate the new knowledge, to do it more quickly, and to increase the collection. It has also made good progress in functional genomics and is achieving a significant position worldwide. While IRRI is not expected to compete with the many advanced genomic labs in every aspect of research, it can fulfil its vision by focusing its limited resources on those genes of high relevance to rice improvement and the Centre’s breeding objectives and, collaborating externally to get techniques and powerful technologies applied to its needs. It is doing so now, and its strategies for maintaining its connectivity with the leaders in this field worldwide are sound. IRRI’s policy should be to both inspire and leverage its interactions with the growing, high quality research community interested in rice genetics. If it fails, it could lose its competitive advantage (Chapter 2).
The Science Divisions
Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biochemistry; Crop, Soil, and Water Sciences; and Entomology and Plant Pathology: the Panel was satisfied with the quality of science and the responsiveness of the Divisions to requests for inputs from the Programme groups. No changes are suggested (Chapter 6).
In reviewing the Organizational Units and Support Services/Units, the Panel was impressed with the quality and responsiveness of the work done. With specific reference to the Social Science Division, the Panel believes that social scientists should be involved with every major project initiative in ex ante cost-benefit analyses; during execution to monitor and weigh the probabilities of its success; and ex post to evaluate its impact on the well-being of affected households. This expansion in its role implies an increased social science capability within IRRI (Chapter 5).
Training and Knowledge Dissemination
The Panel believes that training and knowledge delivery in IRRI should not be treated as just another project. Its activities already spread across the full extent of the research projects, which have constant interaction with its functions in providing information to the Rice Knowledge Bank and its contributions to training modules. The Panel envisages an increase in the prominence of the whole of the knowledge delivery activities in IRRI in the future. IRRI’s experience and lead in packaging knowledge and delivering it through the Rice Knowledge Bank, for example, can provide a model for other initiatives in the CGIAR. The ‘Training’ Centre will be better viewed as a cross-institute programme that contributes to the delivery of the research output.
Both of the observations pertaining to social science work and to training imply that Programme 4 as it now stands would cease to exist (Chapter 5).
Partnerships, Consortia and Networks
One of the key factors in IRRI’s successes over the years has been its strong working relationships with the agricultural agencies of rice-growing countries in Asia and the excellent tradition of collaborative scientific research with many leading Agricultural Research Institutes around the world.
IRRI has bilateral arrangements with sixteen rice growing countries in Asia, with offices in ten of these to support the research and training staff located in those countries. Without this very large set of partnership arrangements, IRRI would cease to function in its present capacity. The range of networking activities is very wide, and provides an effective mechanism through which IRRI can draw adequately on the world’s knowledge of rice science, listen and respond appropriately to clients and deliver targeted research results to where they are most needed. The Panel firmly believes that these partnerships have a vital role in the future - just as they do today, and recommends that rice dependent countries make every effort to maintain them through adequate resourcing of their associated consortia and networks.
IRRI is the initiator or a member of over ten active consortia and networks. Over the past five years, the IRRI-NARS interactions have strengthened considerably through the expanded role of IRRC and CURE. The Consortia have evolved into meaningful research partnerships where experiments are conducted at joint on-farm sites and regional priorities are identified and acted upon together. The Panel suggests that the role of these Consortia be expanded in the future to become the principal delivery vehicles of IRRI’s products, information and knowledge training for rice growing countries. This is particularly important in the case of INGER which has lost external funding in the past.
The Panel cannot over-emphasize the importance of maintaining and building effective partner relationships in fulfilling IRRI’s role. All at IRRI fully appreciate this, but are faced with a wide range of country and donor priorities. The Panel noted that this inevitably leads to some degree of short-term ad hoc solutions to the distribution of resources and research effort across countries. Elevating the role of Consortia both within IRRI and externally to ‘flagship’ status and presence should reassure donors of the continuing value and relevance of IRRI’s work.
Host Country Relations
The Panel gained evidence from senior government officers that IRRI’s presence is still welcomed in the Philippines and IRRI’s contribution is recognized as very significant. IRRI’s relations with PhilRice are good, and IRRI values the opportunity to have PhilRice as a partner for bringing advanced germplasm into commerce, including hybrid rice.
IRRI is sited on land owned by the University of the Philippines. It renegotiated its lease in 2000 for another twenty-five years. Relations with the University are good, although more interactions between University faculty and IRRI staff would be welcomed.
One concern is proposed changes to legislation in the Philippines that would remove IRRI’s diplomatic immunity with regard to labour. IRRI fully complies with Philippine labour laws consistent with its diplomatic status. However, this proposed legislation has not prospered to date in both Houses of Philippines Congress.
IRRI in Africa?
The Panel, as well as IRRI’s Board, is asking whether and how it should extend its work into Africa. The case for going into Africa rests almost entirely on the number of poor there, which is second only to South Asia among the major regions of the world. But is rice research from IRRI the appropriate means to tackle that problem, given the fact that rice is merely one of the many food crops grown and consumed in Africa? Besides, the rice that is grown, is grown mostly in upland conditions in fields with mixed farming. IRRI’s work in areas with similar ecosystems in Asia has not been productive. There are irrigated areas in parts of West Africa, and rainfed lowland paddies in Madagascar where IRRI could make a useful contribution, but added together, these produce somewhat less than 5 million tons currently, a little above Nepal’s production.
The Panel suggests that IRRI should carefully examine the cost-effectiveness of any expansion into Africa. Should it decide to go ahead, it should do so in tandem with partners, for they are needed to work in the peculiarly difficult agronomic conditions of that continent. For West Africa, IRRI cannot proceed without WARDA with whom relationships in the past have, on occasions, been somewhat strained. The Panel suggests that, as a starting point, potential partners be invited to Los Baños where, in light of what IRRI has to offer, all potential partners can develop a coordinated approach to extending rice research in the continent that builds on the respective competencies of each partner, and seeks those synergistic relationships that donors will expect.
Organization
The Panel has concluded that IRRI would benefit from organizing its principal scientific thrusts through three flagship Programmes. Two would cover the outputs targeted under Favourable and Unfavourable environments respectively. Each would be strengthened and given more visibility by a Programme Leader with augmented responsibilities for implementation, who will act a spokesperson for the Programme’s vision and objectives.
The third flagship Programme would both underpin the above Programmes and encompass the IRGC, with its essential external links to the global rice genomics and genetics community. The current 4th Programme would be discontinued and some of its social sciences incorporated into other Programmes. Training and knowledge dissemination would assume a high profile status as a separate entity but linked to all other Programmes (Chapter 8).
Quality Assurance
The Panel notes that, throughout the period under review, IRRI has developed sound systems for assuring the continued quality of its work. IRRI has an enviable record of delivering effective solutions to problems. A detailed performance evaluation system has been developed to evaluate the performance of IRS annually. Senior scientists in all scientific divisions publish in international refereed journals at a rate comparable with good academic institutions while functioning in a setting where they combine scientific activities with applied research programmes with NARS. Many of these scientists have received tokens of recognition in the scientific environment. The Panel rated the scientific quality of the research in the different programmes as very good. This is partly due to the high quality services that scientists can rely upon within the Institute. The Panel believes that IRRI, and the next EPMR, would benefit from greater use of CCERs on key research topics and on selected management topics to assure the Board of IRRI’s continued effectiveness and efficiency (Chapter 6). The Panel believes that constant vigilance on quality assurance mechanisms is particularly important in all aspects of germplasm exchange (Chapter 8).
Matrix Management
IRRI has adopted the matrix management (MM) process for the four major Programmes comprising 12 interconnected Projects with associated support across the scientific disciplines, service units and the Training Centre. Though complex, this structure has worked well and has contributed to the excellent science that typifies IRRI today. IRRI has modified the process to avoid problems typically associated with the concept and also to more closely align tasks - and the responsibilities for carrying out those tasks - with the individuals who can be held solely accountable for results. No significant changes in the MM processes are proposed (Chapter 7).
Planning and Control
IRRI’s planning processes for identifying and prioritizing all the activities that comprise its overall work programme are comprehensive. Once the Board has approved a strategic plan, a rolling Medium Term Plan (MTP) is prepared that outlines, by project, the individual tasks, resource requirements, intermediate- and end-products, time deadlines and responsibilities for achieving results. Projects are controlled by comparing expenditures against approved budgets, and qualitatively by comparing progress in reaching project/task milestones as outlined in the MTP. The Panel considers that improvements in presentation and clarification of goals would make the MTP a more useful document.
Preparing this complex planning document is time consuming. The Panel puts special emphasis on the planning process, not only to describe what IRRI will do, but also to optimize its comparative advantage and fitness to compete in a fastly changing environment. Staff are involved in the planning process - in setting out the range of projects and tasks that constitute a possible work programme. What is less well understood by the Panel is the critical next step in the planning process - how priorities are actually established and resources ultimately allocated between competing claims on limited resources. The Panel notes that staff involvement in all aspects of the planning and priority setting process will enhance ‘ownership’ of the end results of the process.
The Panel suggests that in the planning process, all projects should have clear end user goals and assessments of the probability of their being realized and adopted (Chapter 7).
Governance and Management
In reviewing the work of the Board of Trustees and Management, the Panel notes the newly emerging challenges facing IRRI in the years ahead due to changing funding patterns; changing relationships with clients; increased scrutiny from donors; and increasing liability exposure of Trustees to the results of decisions taken by the Board. As the ‘bar’ in governance performance is being raised, IRRI’s Board will need to match its modus operandi with these new demands including: taking a more substantive role in developing the strategic plans for the institute and for monitoring progress against the approved plan; receiving more timely information about the conduct of IRRI’s affairs; and making greater efforts to recruit Trustees whose competencies match the Institute’s emerging requirements across a wide variety of disciplines. The Board should also adopt more comprehensive Investment Guidelines that match the increasing size and complexity of the Centre’s investment portfolio. In reviewing the processes and systems used in managing its own operations, and the independent auditing of its activities, the Panel concludes that donors can be assured that funds given to IRRI are being appropriately managed (Chapter 7).
The Panel commends IRRI for its progress in dealing with IPR issues. Its Board approved policies on this topic and on the interaction with the private sector are well founded. They uphold the principles of the need to produce international goods available to all, but also provide for opportunities to negotiate licences to use technology that could be of enormous benefit. There is now the on-going challenge to get the principles of good management of IP understood and practised in the organization, where appropriate. IRRI is also now charting a careful, but sound, way forward on developing and evaluating transgenic plants, to be deployed into agriculture by the NARS. IRRI should continue to keep a careful watch with its partners on developments in this important area. The Panel emphasizes that IRRI do nothing that could conceivably lead to the contamination of its IRGC stocks with transgenic seed.
IRRI and the CGIAR System
There are natural tensions between the many components of the CGIAR system. The CGIAR has no legal identity, and all its donors have a seat at the table - making it rather impotent as a decision making body.
The CGIAR Centres are legally autonomous and each Centre’s Board has the authority, and ultimate responsibility, for determining and carrying out its programmes and policies. However, the CGIAR has recently established a Science Council that is envisaged to have some jurisdiction over the science at the Centres. Further, as seen by the strong growth in special programme funding at the expense of core funding, donors obviously have strong wishes for what Centres should be doing and there is little commonality between donors’ expectations. In addition, last year, the CGIAR introduced Challenge Programmes to which it is expected that Centres will bid for, and win, funds. A significant portion of these funds come from the previously expected budgets of the Centres. Whatever their merits, these Challenge Programmes therefore distort the programmes of the Centres away from previously accepted, and presumably high priority goals. Centre Trustees were not consulted about these changes.
All these issues create difficulties for all members of the CGIAR family. They create particular difficulties for the Management and Boards of the Centres. These difficulties need to be minimized or resolved, otherwise they sap energy from the science and purpose of the Centres, create cost inefficiencies and, especially, undermine the aspirations of talented people. IRRI is no exception and the Panel noted many issues stemming from these structural tensions.
It is not the place for an EPMR to solve these tensions involving multiple layers of leadership. The Panel strongly urges that they be addressed, however, because of their obviously deleterious effects on the system, including IRRI, and the potential for decreasing the System’s impact on poverty alleviation.
IRRI’s Role in the Future
IRRI is uniquely positioned in a field of science that today is itself full of new and exciting opportunities like never before. IRRI will play an important role in rice research in the future. It has a set of unique core competencies in terms of being an apolitical, neutral curator of the rice germplasm collection and knowledge base; in having a worldwide networking capability second to none; and in knowledge dissemination. Sustaining and utilizing this set of competencies for the next 5-15 years in the optimum manner will be a challenge, but the Panel believes IRRI is capable of, and indeed well on the way towards maintaining its unique contribution to alleviating poverty.
The Panel is convinced there is a need in Asia for IRRI, given this unique set of core competencies. The Panel envisages an IRRI that is clearly recognized externally and internally as being a leading rice-based international institute delivering knowledge and tested products and concepts that demonstrably contribute to alleviating poverty and enhancing environmental sustainability. It does this by inspiring and harnessing the world’s research community, leveraging it for the needs of the poor. It links interdisciplinary sciences that reflect the increasing complexity of rice production systems with those best equipped to deploy them and is therefore neither an upstream nor a downstream organization.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
All Board members should receive this same information on a quarterly basis, and all these reports should be available to Board members within 20 days of the end of the reporting period.
Chapter 8
(i) When setting priorities they should evaluate alternative approaches to alleviating the poverty problems in their ecosystems, and recommend changes to project structure as needed.
(ii) In implementing the research they should control the GOC and FTE inputs, and thus may negotiate for the human resources from all the Divisions as needed.
(iii) At particular milestones during or at the close of their research, they should sponsor studies of the impact of their work.
