CARIS: Supporting Agronomic Research

To answer the question 'who did what in agronomic research and where ?', the FAO, in collaboration with its member states, created the Current Agricultural Research Information System (CARIS) in 1973. It operates as a decentralized network of 85 national, regional and international centres coordinated by the FAO. It is based on the principle of voluntary participation: each centre provides it with relevant data produced at the national level and selects the data it needs itself from the pool. CARIS offers various possibilities to Third World countries including the establishment of a system for organizing and exchanging information on their activities and on current research and the improvement of communication between institutions and researchers. It also helps to reinforce technical cooperation between Third World countries and assists in the evaluation of research programmes, including the identification of weak spots, and in drawing up national and international plans. It provides information on research institutes, researchers, research projects and programmes as well as Third World developments dealing with agriculture in the broad sense, including forestry. The database of CARIS, now operational, contains 3,000 descriptions of research projects and can be consulted in English, French and Spanish. It provides many services to users database research, selective release of information, lists of researchers or research institutes working on specific subjects and can also produce national or regional CARIS directories. CARIS and CTA As part of its goal to ensure that ACP countries have better access to information, research, training and innovations in the field of rural and agricultural development, and in response to the recommendations of the 'Seminar on scientific and technical information for rural and agricultural development', held in Montpellier, France in December 1984, CTA has just started supporting two projects working on an inventory of agronomic research activities in the Caribbean and Pacific. The purpose of this initiative is to encourage ACP countries to participate more actively in CARIS, to use the system in a more efficient manner, to improve the dissemination of information on agronomic research, and to encourage more solidarity among researchers, planners and rural development specialists. CARIS in the Caribbean The first project is designed to support the University of West Indies in Trinidad, which is the regional coordinator for the Caribbean Agricultural Science Information System. Its main objective goal is to support planning, education, research development and agricultural production through the prompt provision of information. The ACP countries involved in this project are: Antigua, and Barbados, Bahamas, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Surinam. CARIS in the Pacific The second project started by the University of the South Pacific, plans to survey 600 on-going research programmes in the Pacific region over the next two years and to lay the groundwork for the establishment of an intra-Pacific information exchange system that would also interact with other Third World countries outside the region. The ACP countries involved are: Fiji, West Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu. From these two projects, CARIS will produce national and regional directories which will be distributed to users as their contribution to international cooperation for scientific and technical information exchange. There is no doubt that CARIS greatly contributes towards reinforcing national capacities in agricultural research, promoting regional cooperation in the information field, helping to formulate a consistent policy for rural and agricultural development. For more information, contact: CARIS Coordination Centre FAO Via delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 ROME, Italy Tel. 57974391/3190 Telex :610181 FAOITo answer the question 'who did what in agronomic research and where ?', the FAO, in collaboration with its member states, created the Current Agricultural Research Information System (CARIS) in 1973. It operates as a decentralized network of 85..