Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators Statistical Database

The Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative
compiles, processes, and makes available internationally comparable
data on institutional developments and investments in agricultural R&D
worldwide, and analyzes and reports on these trends in the form of
occasional policy digests for research policy formulation and priority
setting purposes. The project involves a large amount of original and
ongoing survey work focused on developing countries, but also
maintains access to relevant data for developed countries produced by
the OECD Science and Technology Indicators unit, the U.S. National
Science Foundation, and other similar agencies. The activities are led
jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
and the International Service for National Agricultural Research
(ISNAR), and involve collaborative alliances with a large number of
national and regional R&D agencies, as well as international
institutions.

The ASTI database collects, screens and summarizes agricultural R&D
expenditure and related R&D personnel data for both developed and
developing countries. Data are mainly collected at institute level and
summarized in four institutional categories of implementing agencies:
(1) Government; (2) Nonprofit; (3) University; and (4) Business. The
first three categories together constitute a "public sub-total". R&D
activities undertaken by international organizations are explicitly
excluded and will be reported separately.

The statistical coverage of the four institutional categories varies
quite a bit. Government and nonprofit research agencies are usually
well covered both in terms of research expenditures and research
personnel. The university category is rather problematic as
estimations of time spent on research by faculty staff are rather
sketchy. Usually a fixed percentage ranging between 10-50% is applied
across all faculty staff, for all years. The contribution of PhD
students is usually not covered. Research expenditure data by
universities are seldom directly obtained and usually estimated
indirectly. However, collecting data on research by public and private
businesses constitutes the biggest challenge. In most developing
countries business R&D surveys are not in place yet, but also in the
developed countries ^?agriculture, forestry and fisheries^? businesses
tend to be covered quite loosely by business R&D

The ASTI database can be queried by country or region, Implementing
Agencies, Agricultural R&D Indicators and Years.

Data link: http://www.asti.cgiar.org/
This information was obtained from the ASTI web site:
http://www.asti.cgiar.org