The performance of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI’s) research program that focuses on water resource issues is reviewed for the period 1994–2010 around the three themes that constitute the program: global modeling, river basin modeling, and institutions. The IFPRI water team has been involved in leading-edge research in a number of dimensions: it has focused on analysis at varying geographic scales; the work has been truly interdisciplinary by engaging economics with biophysical science and other social sciences; and research outputs have been innovative in advancing institutional analysis and water pricing and in policy measures addressing the complexities of water supply management. In the research tasks, IFPRI’s water team actively collaborated with a wide range of researchers from within the CGIAR network, national research institutes, and universities. Within the team, a largely stable group of leaders has been responsible for the professional development of a substantial cohort of junior staff who have moved onto successful careers elsewhere. The output of the program has been prolific and prominent in academic, policy, and development communities. The approach taken is to review selected publications from the themes; assess the quality of the journals in which papers have been published; and evaluate the performance, on average, of researchers in the program. In addition, surveys of stakeholders were carried out, and three specific projects were subjected to detailed review. The assessment demonstrated the high regard in which the program research outputs and researchers are held. The IFPRI water team has been remarkably productive throughout the 16 years considered, working on issues that are of high relevance to policy and producing work that has largely been cutting edge. However, impacts generated by individual projects were not consistently or readily identifiable. To maximize the benefits of this performance and to overcome challenges associated with securing more outcomes, this report recommends that a more coordinated approach be taken to develop the research project portfolio. This would involve better targeting of projects to policy objectives through a more systematic review of research demand forces and improved integration of research work with policy development processes. The latter in particular requires the development of a sense of research project “ownership” within the policy circles the research is designed to influence. More effort in the development of in-country research partnerships can aid this process as local researchers can act as “champions” within local policy circles. Where government agencies have a research function, their integration into the partnerships is recommended. Avoidance of completing research projects in a “policy vacuum” is critical but requires both advanced planning of each research project as well as constant adaptation of the work plan to (often rapidly) evolving policy contexts. To achieve project impacts beyond the immediacy of the specific case study context, a more targeted and coordinated publication strategy should be developed in light of changing publication technology. Project webpages within the IFPRI website, with readily downloadable reports, are useful during the implementation of each project and more formal papers should be targeted for publication in high-impact factor technical journals with parallel papers prepared for more policy-oriented journals that have high circulations.

This report assesses the impact of IFPRI’s social-protection research program (GRP28) from 2000 to 2012 (including its predecessor, MP18). The assessment includes an extensive review of public goods produced by the program, stakeholder perceptions of the program’s public goods and research activities, case studies (Bangladesh, London, Mexico, Rome, and Washington, DC), and policy or programming changes that resulted from IFPRI-sponsored research, capacity strengthening, and research-policy linkages between 2000 and 2012. Over 40 interviews were conducted with national stakeholders, donors, IFPRI staff, government officials, and individuals who participated in or had knowledge of IFPRI’s activities regarding social protection during this timeframe. IFPRI’s social-protection research activities conducted under the GRP28 are ongoing and extend beyond the 2012 endline of this assessment. GRP28 research activities initiated during the latter part of the 12-year timeframe (that is, in 2010, 2011, or 2012) are limited or absent from this assessment if results had not been published at the time the study was initiated early in the summer of 2014.

Marking IFPRI’s 40th year, this report draws on external sources of evidence to review the Institute’s policy influence and impact to date and provides recommendations to improve. The external evidence includes citations data, external program and management reviews commissioned by CGIAR, and a series of independently conducted impact assessment studies of many of IFPRI’s research programs and projects between 1995 and 2015. The report also reviews recommendations as to how IFPRI might improve its impact.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has undertaken research programs on agricultural STI policy since 1995. This study assesses the impact of this body of research outputs and support services in terms of three complementary analyses: (1) an evaluation of the potential impact of the complete body of research using implicit or explicit impact pathways, (2) two case studies that assess the actual impact of particular research outputs, and (3) a more traditional bibliometric analysis. Movement along the impact pathway, in turn, requires different types of research products—evolving from problem framing to methodology development, then to case studies, and finally to context-specific policy recommendations—all within the logical stages of the impact pathway. How far IFPRI operates along this impact pathway produces a basic tension between the CGIAR’s mandate to produce international public goods (IPGs) and the increasing focus on accountability through impact in the use of international public funds.