Universities should be regarded as key components of national agricultural research systems and participate actively in national and regional agricultural R&D-priority setting, and in the emerging competitive and other funding mechanisms being proposed under the MAPP initiative of the World Bank. Such initiatives should ensure that basic research does not miss out, as often short-term impacts are emphasized, while basic and strategic research is by nature long term. Universities in consultation with NARIs should review undergraduate curricula to ensure that the students gain an understanding of the constraints and opportunities in smallholder agricultural/farming systems (as opposed to reductionist curricula more relevant to large-scale commercial farms in the linear research-extension model now increasingly being questioned).
If competitive grant funding mechanisms are to minimize tensions among institutions vying for resources, they need to be structured to especially reward creative asymmetric partnerships that include weaker actors such as the smaller NARS. The formation of such teams with common interests in competing for grants and collaborating in jointly-funded research projects can be a strong unifying force, as evidenced by the success of the Australian Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) model described earlier in this chapter.
Participatory/diagnostic on-farm research approaches and knowledge and information management techniques using information and communications technology are strategies for equipping graduates to play more entrepreneurial roles. They may help to foster smallholder organizations and work with them to make e-farming a reality. The i@mac.com reform at Makerere University in Uganda is an innovative approach. Graduate students undertaking thesis research could be located at accredited NARIs for the conduct of their research, thus exposing them to the real national/regional priority problems of smallholders.