All institutes of the European Consortium for Agricultural Research for the Tropics (ECART) responded to the questionnaire. In addition, all members of this consortium are represented on the INTERNET.
ECART, established in 1991, currently comprises seven European institutions (CIRAD, KIT, NRInternational, NRI, IICT, GTZ, ATSAF) in five European countries. Two of the seven ECART institutes are private enterprises. The others are either mixed (private/public) or public institutions. The main focus of these institutions is on research (CIRAD, NRI, IICT, ATSAF, NRInternational), development (GTZ, KIT, NRInternational) and training (KIT, CIRAD, IICT, GTZ, NRI, NRInternational). However, CIRAD, KIT and IICT are doing both research and development. While ATSAF is doing research through its scientific members from a multitude of German research institutions its main focus is research policy advice. GTZ and KIT are active in the field of technical development cooperation and in the promotion of research outputs. NRI and CIRAD emphasize the scientific aspect of their work, whereas NRI Limited offers technical services. The network members cover a broad range of technical and scientific experiences in the sectors of food production, cash crops and environmental protection.
All institutes are involved in information on ARD, information dissemination, different aspects of research management and policy advice. The network is active on a world-wide scale, whereas e.g. KIT, GTZ and CIRAD are active in 55, 50, and 45 countries, respectively. All of the seven ECART members cooperate with International Agricultural Research Centers, NGOs (e.g. CARE International, OXFAM, SOS Sahel, Christian Aid, Save the Children, Action Aid, FAO, CTA), several universities in developing countries and are involved in different networks like ETFRN, IPM EUROPE, BUROTROP, NATURA, etc. Figure 6 shows the organizational structure and number of staff of the different institutions.
Fig. 6: Number of total staff with 5667 persons as support, technical and scientific staff and number of expert staff with 3002 persons within the organizations of ECART.
The Network of European Agricultural Universities (oriented towards the Tropics and Subtropics) and Scientific Complexes related with Agricultural Development (NATURA) gathers 35 European universities (focal points) with approximately 4000 scientists aiming at developing concerted actions in education and research for development. The inquiry resulted in a feed back from 13 universities. However, through INTERNET searches and personal communications at the institutional level, a total of 133 institutes/departments affiliated in one or the other way(1) to the NATURA network could be identified and included in the evaluation. Surprisingly, only three of these institutes were not present with a homepage on the World Wide Web (www).
Fig. 7: Number of the European research institutes involved in the NATURA network within the EIARD Member States
In total, 133 institutes from 12 European countries are gathered in the NATURA network according to the present evaluation. The distribution of these institutes within Europe shows high numbers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the UK and lower numbers in Ireland, Denmark and Spain (Fig. 7).
Fig.8: Clustering of research and development institutes according to their research orientation
With respect to the research orientation of the different NATURA institutes it can be stated that most of them are doing research in the field of plant and animal production or socioeconomic sciences (Fig. 8). A considerable number of institutes is devoted to integrated production systems and environmental issues. In view of the considerable European capacity in forestry and fisheries, the presence of such institutes in the NATURA network appears to be comparably low.
(1)e.g. University of Hohenheim with its Tropical Centre represents a NATURA focal point consisting of 15 associated departments
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