Welcome to the Advanced Research Institutions Homepage of the GFAR. Mainly located in developed countries, ARIs comprise public and private institutions with highly advanced research capabilities. ARI participation in GFAR further harnesses their specific comparative advantage and expertise in basic research towards agricultural research for development.

Advanced Research Institutions (ARIs) play several vital roles in global agricultural research for development and their full involvement in GFAR is essential. ARIs are mainly located in developed countries. They comprise public and private institutions with highly advanced research capabilities and a specific comparative advantage in basic research. Public ARIs include universities and national agricultural research institutes. Private ARIs may consist of universities and non-profit research corporations.

In addition to their basic research capabilities, public universities have a long tradition and expertise in applied and adaptive research. Many universities also have experience in strategic research. Public universities in particular have proven track records of integrating the utilization of research results over the entire spectrum, from basic to adaptive. Also, public universities have an important role in the higher education and training of future agricultural research workers.

We anticipate that this GFAR site will provide a platform for establishing improved dialogue between interested ARIs and between ARIs and other GFAR constituencies. Also, we hope that this website will help to build awareness of GFAR among a broader cross-section of ARIs. We should also like to see the website used to gain input and feedback from the other constituencies.

The ARI constituency is broad and loosely-knit. GFAR has made a distinction between three groups of ARIs according to their geographic distribution:

• The European ARIs
• The North American ARIs
• The Asia - Pacific ARIs

At the global level, there is an interesting site encompassing ARIs and NARS worldwide: The Global Consortium of Higher Education and Research for Agriculture (GCHERA).

A. The European ARIs
In 1995 the Member States of the European Union, the European Commission, Norway and Switzerland joined their forces in an informal way for better co-ordination and concerted actions in Agricultural Research for Development (ARD). The shared commitment resulted in the European Initiative for Agricultural Research for Development (EIARD).

More recently, a European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) was established. The First European Forum on ARD was organized in April 1999.

The European universities dealing with ARD have established NATURA, the Network of European Agricultural (Tropically and Sub-tropically Oriented) Universities and Scientific Complexes Related with Agricultural development. Similarly, the main European research organizations for ARD have established ECART, the European Consortium for Agricultural Research in the Tropics. Several thematic networks led by or with a strong involvement of European institutions exist. Among them, it is worth mentioning:

• ETFRN
• IPM-Europe
• BUROTROP
• ESCORENA, The European System of Cooperative Research Networks in Agriculture

B. The North American ARIs
The representatives of the USA and Canada in the GFAR Steering Committee are currently working to identify and link the North American ARIs with a vested interest in ARD to EGFAR. The USDA provided some funds to Cornell University for the identification of American ARIs and GFAR has worked with Canadian Agri-Food Research Council (CARC) and Canadian ARIs. Links to North American ARIs can be found on the NAFAR website.

C. The Asia - Pacific ARIs
In the Asia - Pacific Region, ARIs and NARS, according to the GFAR definitions, belong usually to the same regional and/or sub-regional organizations.

As we develop this page further you will find information on activities undertaken by the ARI constituency of GFAR, plus discussion papers and link to websites of active members.

Please feel free to react to this page and to give us your comments on ways to improve the site. We also encourage you to participate in upcoming dialogues and to suggest topics for new ones.