A now commonly used mechanism for funding agricultural research is the Competitive Grants
Scheme (CGS). This tool, which has become increasingly popular since the early 1990s, has been
used to develop, ensure and sustain scientific capacity and to allocate resources to the most
important scientific (and development) issues. While a number of such CGS have emerged over
the years, the long gestation nature of agricultural and related research makes it difficult to draw
conclusions about its efficiency and effectiveness for improving research relevance, effects on
national capacity building, and sustainability of research infrastructure (Bie and Elliott, 2005).
It would be useful to learn of the emerging outcomes, if not impacts, of the various CGS currently
being implemented as these would provide useful insights in the design and implementation of
future CGS.
Following the suggestions made by participants to the FARA General Assembly Pre-Plenary Session
on ¿Lessons Learned in the ASARECA Competitive Grants¿ held in June 2005 in Entebbe, Uganda,
the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), through its Project DURAS (Promotion of
Sustainable Development in Agricultural Research System in the South), organized an electronic
discussion on Competitive Grants. The Roundtable Discussion was then organized as a follow-up
to the electronic debate.