Glossary

Altiplano

Highlands / high plateau (Bolivia).

Best Practice Guidelines (SEM)

Chaco

Arid lowlands (Bolivia).

The first stage in the application process for NRSP research project funding, comprising a brief outline of the key features of the proposed research.

Conceptual Impact Model (CIM)

NRSP projects were sited in:
Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Caribbean, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
Countries in bold are those in which NRSP concentrated its resources following budget cuts in 2002.

Delivery (of research findings and results)

The act of placing 'research findings' and results in public domain locations (physical and virtual) in accessible 'media' forms that are appropriate for their use by stakeholders.

Developmental impact

Enduring changes (e.g. in livelihoods, policies, institutions, processes or resources) resulting from research project outputs and outcomes.  These may be positive or negative, local or non-local.

Domain (for uptake)

Domain V

In the 'Conceptual Impact Model', the national level target institutions (NTIs) in the target country where a project is located.

In the 'Conceptual Impact Model', the international level target institutions (ITIs) to whom a project and the programme can readily disseminate research findings and products through publications and other media channels.

In the 'Conceptual Impact Model', the primary stakeholders/ultimate beneficiaries located in non-project sites in a target and non-target countries together with local intermediate/secondary stakeholders.

Footprint

Fundaciones

Enduring changes (e.g. in livelihoods, policies, institutions, processes or resources) resulting from research project outputs and outcomes.  These may be positive or negative, local or non-local.

Integrated management of natural resources

Integrated management of NRs covers three inter-related fields: a holistic view of the NR base itself (for NRSP, these are landforms, soil, water, vegetation and organic residues); the integrated and dynamic nature of people's livelihood strategies and how these affect their decision-making and capacity to use and manage the NR base; and the institutional environment in which NR management strategies are designed and implemented.

International Target Institution (ITI)

Livelihood assets

Local Target Intstitution (LTI)

Within 'CIM', a local level institution targeted by a research project for 'research product' 'uptake promotion'.

Logframe;
Logical Framework Approach / Matrix

The Logical Framework Approach is an analytical managment tool that helps planners and managers to: analyse the existing situation during project preparation; establish a logical hierarchy of means (inputs, activities, output, purpose) by which project objectives will be reached; identify potential risks; establish how 'outputs' and 'outcomes' will best be monitored and evaluated; and present a summary of the project in a standard format, ie the Logframe matrix.

Media forms (for research products)

The various ways (or channels) by which the content of a specified 'research product' is communicated to the various stakeholders who need to be aware of the product.  For example, hard copy guidelines, videos, briefing pamphlets, face-to-face discussions; electronic databases and conferences.

Micro Action Planning

A participatory action research method, that enables the community to assess the implicatons and outcomes of community forestry (Nepal).

mul , mol

manure (Nepal).

National Target Institution (NTI)

Within 'CIM', a national level institution targeted by a research project for 'research product' 'uptake promotion'.

Natural resources

NRSP research focused on landforms, soil, water (fresh and marine), vegetation and organic residues.  Livestock and fish were addressed respectively by the Livestock Production Programme and Fisheries Management Science Programme.

From 2002, NRSP projects were grouped around eight "nodes".  Seven of these were geographic (Bangladesh, Bolivia, Caribbean, Eastern Africa, Ghana, India, Nepal) and the eighth was system based (Peri-Urban Interface (PUI)). The concept behind these node groupings was that the commonality and synergy between the different 'production systems' projects in each node could be capitalised upon to enhance the effectiveness of 'uptake promotion' activities and research 'impact'.  

The node that contains NRSP projects that are positioned outside the 8 'uptake promotion' nodes.  These projects are grouped by research 'Topic Cluster'.

Outcomes

Outputs

Production System

The Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy ('RNRRS') specified six target renewable natural resources (RNR) production systems that cut across the RNR research programmes. NRSP projects covered all six production systems.  These are the:

Forest agriculture interface (FAI), High potential systems (HP), Hillsides systems (HS), Land water interface (LWI), Peri-urban interface (PUI) and Semi-arid systems (SA).

Promotion of uptake of research products (or Uptake Promotion, UP)

Planned activities for information delivery that facilitate the use of specific 'research products' by particular stakeholders, including personnel of developmental organisations, meso- and apex policy level actors and poor people themselves.  Communication is seen as central to effective uptake promotion.

Pro-poor

Research or 'uptake promotion' activities conducted and delivered in ways that are designed  to benefit the poor.

RD1

Within the RNRRS, the research and development funding application.

Research findings

The interpretation of 'research results', including their refinement into specific 'research products'.

Research outputs

Research products

Findings and results of research, e.g. methods; conceptual models; decision-making aids; recommendations; scientific understanding delivered in various accessible forms; technical information; transferable technologies; sets of alternatives from which end-users choose.

Research results

The qualitative and quantitative data arising from conducting research.

Research uptake

Change in the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of target organisations, groups or individuals, arising from access to and use of 'research products'.

Scaling-up

More quality benefits to more people over a wider geographical area more quickly, more equitably and more lastingly (IIRR, 2000.  Going to scale: Can we bring more benefits to more people, more quickly? Silang, Cavite, Philippines: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction.)

Stakeholder domain 

A generic group or category of stakeholders with whom the project and/or the programme must engage in order to attain an 'output' objective and to contribute to attainment of the purpose

For the purposes of NRSP, a system is defined as an assemblage of inter-related parts that can deliver useful outputs, over a long period of time, if it is provided with some inputs from within or outside the system. The inter-related parts are: people; their resources, particularly the NRs which they access and manage; and the institutions that influence the ways by which the system’s inputs are obtained and its outputs are achieved.  Since the parts are inter-related, efforts to improve a system (i.e., achieve better outputs using the same or different inputs) are likely to change the relationships between the system’s parts and may even change the parts that comprise the system.

Applying a systems approach to NR research requires the research team to have the capacity to appreciate and accommodate the complexity of a system’s parts and their inter-relationships;  to address the details of the system with which they are working, for example migration patterns of the population, market opportunities and social determinants of behaviour; and to predict and/or observe the consequences of changing the system in order to give advantage to the part(s) of the system that the research addresses (e.g. reducing soil erosion or enhancing crop yields).

Target Institutions

Target institutions are those local, national or international level formal or informal institutions that take up, utilise or transfer the products of research to achieve 'developmental impact'. Target institutions may be the end users of 'research products'. 

Terai

Southern lowlands of Nepal, including the Gangetic Plain and river valleys

Theme;
Research theme

These 'themes' specify the topics for which NRSP contributes new knowledge on transacting change in the integrated management of natural resources.  The nine themes apply across all six 'production systems' and are: 

Tole

Hamlet (Nepal).

Topic Cluster

A group of projects clustered by research topic and not included within NRSP's 2002 uptake promotion strategy and uptake nodes.

Tracking

Record keeping during the life of a project or programme that enables the research team to review and report on its activities.  The records can be expanded to include a reflection on the quality of activity, feedback from stakeholders; and an assessment of progress and can contribute to the documentation of a project’s organisational learning.

Uptake promotion

Planned activities for information delivery that facilitate the use of specific 'research products' by particular stakeholders, including personnel of developmental organisations, meso- and apex policy level actors and poor people themselves.  Communication is seen as central to effective uptake promotion.

Uptake Promotion Node

From 2002, NRSP projects were grouped around eight 'nodes'.  Seven of these were geographic (Bangladesh, Bolivia, Caribbean, Eastern Africa, Ghana, India, Nepal) and the eighth was system based (Peri-Urban Interface (PUI)). The concept behind these node groupings was that the commonality and synergy between the different 'production systems' projects within each node could be capitalised upon to enhance the effectiveness of 'uptake promotion' activities and research 'impact'.