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Towards a Knowledge Commons on

Agricultural Research for Development

Our Vision:
"To make public domain agricultural research information and knowledge truly accessible to all."

To increase the public benefits from investments in agricultural research and innovation for development, the participants in the CIARD movement have agreed to make research outputs truly accessible, based on a common set of Values.

RECOGNIZING THAT:

• Agricultural research and innovation are vital mechanisms for rural development and food security driven by farmers, farmer organizations, researchers, policy-makers, governments, and other stakeholders participating in “innovation systems”;
• Public science and research systems are based on the principle of openness and the free exchange of ideas, information and knowledge; and public access to research outputs provides greater returns and increases the potential spillover benefits from global investments in agricultural research for development;
• Enhanced access to these outputs by all actors in agricultural research and innovation is essential both to enable effective decision-making and to empower those concerned with agricultural production and food security;
• The lack of institutional, national, and international policies regarding access to information limits the effectiveness of agricultural research and innovation;
• Lack of skills, finance and technology directly restrict access to these outputs, with adverse impacts on rural development and food security;
• International and national efforts to promote effective broad access to research outputs are often held back by under-investment and a diversity of incompatible approaches to information system architecture;

we, the participant institutions/individuals, have determined that a global partnership within the agricultural research for development community is required to make the public domain outputs of agricultural research truly accessible.  This Manifesto will be adopted in accordance with our specific institutional needs. Through this Manifesto, we endorse the CIARD Coherence Values and we aim to follow the CIARD Checklist and Pathways so that our outputs are 'available', 'accessible' and 'applicable'.
 

VALUES

Enhancing Information Coherence

ADVOCATE EFFECTIVE INVESTMENTS

• Wherever research is conducted, we will promote the reform of policies and processes  to foster investment in systems, services , people and partnerships that make research outputs more accessible, and ultimately more applicable.
• We will work together to change the attitudes of key decision makers by developing clear messages supported by evidence of benefits that will influence policies and lead to the reform of institutions.
• We will work jointly to position, at both the technical and political levels, the benefits of information and knowledge management to impact local and global policy-making.

ESTABLISH COHERENT SYSTEMS AND SERVICES

• We recognize that research and innovation are undertaken by various organizations and institutions with their own audiences, products, and services. We will seek to build complementary activities that reinforce the efforts of others, at national, regional and global levels.
• We will ensure that our information and communication initiatives have goals and aims that are complementary, consistent and mutually supportive; and that they are well-coordinated based on dialogue, negotiation and active collaboration.
• We will work together and adopt common principles and standards to ensure that our research information systems add value to others in the overall knowledge system.

COMMUNICATE CONTENT

• We will collect, and make accessible information and data in accordance with appropriate international and sector standards, and with due attention to proper quality assurance.
• We will make public domain outputs of research publicly available and accessible through repositories and other services, encouraging the use and re-use of our outputs.
• We will support researchers in communicating their outputs in ways that acknowledge and safeguard their intellectual rights.
• We will build open information systems and use open applications, increasing the availability and accessibility of the information we provide.
• We will customize our outputs to the needs of specific audiences, increasing the ways in which they can be used and their potential applications.
• We will ensure that our data and information of long-term value are conserved and remain accessible for present and future generations..

DEVELOP AND STRENGTHEN CAPACITIES

• We will adopt approaches and strategies that promote self-sufficiency and autonomy in communicating research outputs, building local ownership.
• We will address development of institutional and individual capacities needed to design, deliver and manage research information policies, processes, skills, and technologies for innovation.
• We will integrate interventions at policy, institutional and individual levels to develop awareness, understanding, and skills.

Want to know more?

If you or your institution share our views and aims, have ideas and practices to share, or want help to develop better connected and more accessible information collections and services, please contact CIARD for more information at:  information@ciard.net. Aligning efforts in different countries in this way will enable all of us to have a global impact, changing the way that knowledge is shared and used worldwide. 
Visit http://www.ciard.net.