Identifying criteria for public agricultural research decisions

Well defined criteria are critical for making complex decisions. Yet a revi ew of the literature shows that criteria selection has not received major a ttention. This paper presents a framework for guiding practitioners in deve loping and structuring criteria for decision making on public-sector resear ch. First, an initial list of criteria is generated based on objectives, av ailable resources, context, and clients' needs. Second, the relevancy of th e criteria is judged with respect to the research alternatives to be evalua ted. Third, the availability of data to apply the criteria is evaluated. Th e principle is to narrow down a broad list of criteria to the point where t he research alternatives can be characterised by a minimum number of criter ia. The procedure is illustrated with the case of Chile's agricultural biot echnology programme. The paper concludes with a discussion on the benefits of the approach and the issues to be addressed in future applications. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.