Professionalization and evaluation: The case of Indian agricultural research

This paper examines the role of evaluation in promoting and sustaining professionalism in agricultural research organizations. The evaluation experience of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) reveals a series of attempts to review and institutionalize the essential features of professionalism: expertise, credentialism, and autonomy. The central thesis is that when evaluations inform or enable major changes in one or more of these features of professionalism, over a period of time, it is a sign of increasing professionalization of research. Following a brief introduction, the evaluation experiences of ICAR are examined in the context of the evolution of the profession of agricultural research. Specific evaluation experiences are then analyzed, with an emphasis on the role of evaluation in resolving the tension between bureaucratic and professional decision making. The paper concludes that unless stringent evaluations are introduced in ICAR, the professionalization of agricultural research in India will remain incomplete. Graduated in agricultural sciences at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, she obtained her doctoral degree at the Kerala Agricultural University in 1994. She started her professional career as an agricultural extension officer at the State Department of Agriculture in Kerala. She has published on research organization, measurement of research efforts, history and evolution of agricultural science, priority setting, research decision-making, and reforms in agricultural education and training. Her current research focuses on impact of soil-science technologies, development of key disciplines in agricultural chemistry within an evolutionary economics perspective, and institutional and policy implications of changes in agricultural science.