A Comprehensive Overview of Investments and Human Resource Capacity in African Agricultural Research

Increased use of (relatively abundant) land, rather than improved technical efficiency, has been the main driver of agricultural production growth in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) over the past five decades. However, rapid population growth and the adverse effects of climate change are increasingly putting pressure on land availability, land fertility, and water access. Given the well-documented positive impact of agricultural research investment on agricultural productivity growth, it is critical that African countries step up their investment in agricultural research and instate sound policies to promote technological and institutional innovations in the agricultural sector.This report assesses trends in investments, human resource capacity, and outputs in agricultural research in SSA. It highlights the cross-cutting trends and challenges that emerged from ASTI's country-level data, structuring it within four broad areas: funding capacity, human resource capacity, research outputs, and institutional conditions.Key findings of the report include:Agricultural research spending in SSA grew by nearly 50 percent between 2000 and 2014. However, underinvestment remains widespread, with 33 out of 40 countries for which data were available spending less than 1.0 percent of their AgGDP on agricultural research.Across SSA, agricultural researcher numbers increased by 70 percent during 2000–2014. However, a very large share of senior PhD-qualified researchers are approaching retirement. Without adequate succession strategies and training, significant knowledge gaps will emerge.Female scientists remain grossly underrepresented in agricultural research, despite the fact that they are in a unique position to effectively address the pressing challenges facing African farmers, the majority of whom are female.Donor dependency and funding volatility remain critical in a large number of African countries.Outdated research facilities and equipment are impeding the conduct of productive research, which compromises the number and quality of research outputs and ultimately translates into reduced impact.The report concludes by outlining a number of policy measures that SSA governments can undertake to address the various challenges related to agricultural research funding, human capacity, outputs, infrastructure, and institutional structure

Managing Human Resources in Higher Education: The Implications of a Diversifying Workforce

Human resource capacity has become a critical issue for contemporary universities as a result of increasing pressures from governments and global markets. As a consequence, particularly where the institution is the employer, changes are occurring in the expectations of staff and institutions about employment terms and conditions, as well as the broader aspects of working life, and this is affecting academic and professional identities. Even under different regimes, for instance, in Europe, with the government in effect as the employer, institutions are giving greater attention to ways in which they might respond to these developments. This paper considers key issues and challenges in human resource management in higher education, and some of the implications of these changes

HRM, organizational capacity for change, and performance: a global perspective

This special issue brings together a variety of articles, each one enriching understanding about whether and how human resource management (HRM) influences organizational performance (however defined) against a backdrop of complex change. We present a preliminary framework that enables us to integrate the diverse themes explored in the special issue, proposing a mediating role for organizational change capacity (OCC). OCC represents a particular subset within the resource- based literature labeled as “dynamic capabilities.” Although not well researched, there is evidence that OCC is positively associated with firm performance and that this relationship is stronger given conditions of high uncertainty. Our framework reflects on external and internal parameters, which we suggest moderate the relationship between human resource management (HRM), OCC, and organizational performance. Our intention is to provide compelling insight for both practitioners and researchers, especially those whose remit extends beyond national boundaries, with reference to areas of the globe as disparate as Greece, Ireland, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom

Agricultural R&D capacity and investments in the Asia–Pacific region:

"Science and technology (S&T) are major contributors to food security, poverty reduction, and economic growth, as has been proven in Asia since the early-1970s through the Green Revolution in agriculture. Continuing to secure such gains, however, is becoming an increasingly complex undertaking. More than ever, quantitative data are vital for measuring, monitoring, and benchmarking the performance of agricultural S&T systems, including their inputs and outcomes. This brief reviews major institutional developments and investment and human resource trends in agricultural research and development (R&D) in 11 countries of the Asia–Pacific region. The brief draws on a set of country briefs, reports, and underlying datasets developed by the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative. ASTI worked with regional partners to collect detailed quantitative and qualitative information on research capacity and investment trends within agricultural R&D agencies. These data were then linked with investment and human resource data from the Chinese government and other secondary sources to provide a broader regional and global context." from textAgricultural research, Agricultural development, Research and development, Capacity, Investments,

Absorptive Capacity: One Size Fits All? Firm-level Analysis of Absorptive Capacity for Different Kinds of Knowledge

The paper empirically analyses the effect of R&D activities, human resource and knowledge management, and the organisation of knowledge sharing within a firm on the absorptive capacity of innovative firms for three different types of knowledge, namely absorptive capacity to use knowledge from a firm?s own industry, knowledge from other industries and knowledge from research institutions. Using data from the German innovation survey we investigate how firms are able to exploit knowledge from external partners for successful innovation activities. The estimation results show that the determinants of absorptive capacity differ with respect to the type of knowledge absorbed for innovation activities. In particular we find that the R&D intensity does not significantly influence absorptive capacity for intra- and inter-industry knowledge. Additionally, our results suggest that absorptive capacity is path-dependent and firms can influence their ability to exploit external knowledge by encouraging individuals? involvement in a firm?s innovation projects. --absorptive capacity,R&D,innovation management,innovation survey

LESSONS OF INDIAN EXPERIENCE FOR ERITREA

Both India and Eritrea are developing countries. India as a leader of Third world made a huge stride in human resource development and agriculture development where as Eritrea, a young nation still striving hard to develop these areas and thus achieve self reliance. In line with this, Eritrea has been using Indian human resources, as part of its capacity building in education, agricultural and other related areas. An attempt is made in this article to compare Eritrean situation and with some of the Indian experiences and also provide some implications for the policy development in Eritrea. The article ends with some concluding remarks.Eritrea, India, education and human development, Agriculture, economic growth

The four food systems in developing countries and the challenges of modern supply chain inclusion for organic small-holders

To promote developmental objectives, such as growth, food security and improvement of the livelihoods of the rural poor, a greater understanding of the four food systems prevalent in the South is of great importance. Inclusion of small-holder farmers into the various food systems depends to a large extent on the capacity of the intermediaries and their ability to cope with both internal as well as external constraints while linking farmers to the agro-supply chains. The greater discrepancy between the intermediary’s own social and human capital resource base as well as the supporting resource environment, and the level of requirements demanded from agro-food systems; the greater constraints the stakeholders along the supply chain will encounter and the more difficult the inclusion of small-holder farmers will be

Functional imaging reveals working memory and attention interact to produce the attentional blink

Copyright @ 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology PressIf two centrally presented visual stimuli occur within approximately half a second of each other, the second target often fails to be reported correctly. This effect, called the attentional blink (AB; Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 18, 849-860, 1992], has been attributed to a resource "bottleneck," likely arising as a failure of attention during encoding into or retrieval from visual working memory (WM). Here we present participants with a hybrid WM-AB study while they undergo fMRI to provide insight into the neural underpinnings of this bottleneck. Consistent with a WM-based bottleneck account, fronto-parietal brain areas exhibited a WM load-dependent modulation of neural responses during the AB task. These results are consistent with the view that WM and attention share a capacity-limited resource and provide insight into the neural structures that underlie resource allocation in tasks requiring joint use of WM and attention.This research was supported by a project grant (071944) from the Wellcome Trust to Kimron Shapiro