The effectiveness of any agricultural research system depends on how its components are organized and coordinated. The agricultural research master plan not only sets up the agricultural research agenda and spells out the resources needed for its implementation. It also articulates the political and institutional arrangements required to mobilize the available resources in a coherent and cost-effective manner. The Master Plan defines the roles and functions of each of the NARS components, identifies the functions to be shared by more than one component, and determines the modalities for carrying out various activities on the basis of an agreed division of labour and coordination. The objective would be to increase the extent to which the overall function performance of one component will complement the functions performed by the other components in the system.

     The organization of a successful research system/institution demands competency and training not only in front-line research scientists and supporting staff but also in middle-level and senior research management; it also demands effective institutional direction and governance that command respect and loyalty. Competent and effective agricultural research management demands a range of competencies not only across specific domains of the physical, natural and social sciences but equally, if not more important, across the sciences and skills that relate to human, financial and physical resources management, and critically to the monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of the research programme outputs. These demands are often not met with within the public service/governmental structures of many developing country NARS.

     Recognising this limitation, FAO assists developing country governments and national research organisations to address the fundamental aspects of research organization and management. Training and research management support is a very important component of the research Master Plan outlined above; as a follow-up to the Master Plan exercise, the Organization also provides specific management training in specifically agreed areas of research management which have been identified as being deficient in the particular NARS in question. Flexibility is a feature of these institution-strengthening projects; each project is specifically tailored to the needs of the research system in question and can vary in scale, technical inputs, time frame and financial cost dependent on the initial strengths of the institutions being addressed, national government finances and donor commitment. In an attempt to address this problem in a holistic manner, FAO has produced a comprehensive training manual, which addresses the various aspects of agricultural research management.