To adopt these strategic research themes, ILRI will need to integrate research both within a theme and between themes, and it must integrate and communicate more closely with partners and the wider global community. The direction proposed is not a strategy for ‘business as usual’ but rather a formula to develop ‘the ILRI the world wants’.
ILRI will continue to have its administrative headquarters in Nairobi and its principal research facilities in Kenya and Ethiopia. Currently it also has research activities in West Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and Latin America. The global research programme will continue, implemented in different regions of the world for the benefit of the developing world. According to the issues involved, scientists and resources located in these different regions will contribute to the five research themes.
Organising and managing an interdisciplinary, multipartner, multilocational and multicultural institution with a global mandate presents many challenges. ILRI sees itself as a medium-size institute with a large mandate. It must put mechanisms in place that promote institutional flexibility, enabling it and its partners to respond to new opportunities. Above all, scientific excellence linked to the goal of reducing poverty must be at the heart of the institute and must drive its management policies. The following principles will guide implementing the revised strategy:
ILRI will seek to establish a balance in its research staff that matches the need for flexibility with stability, maintains a critically sufficient amount of core disciplinary competencies, and combines enthusiasm and willingness to take risks with solid experience and knowledge.
