Use of valuations in a public agricultural research center

Abstract

This research studied the use of evaluations in a Public Agricultural Research Center. An analysis of institutional documents was combined with an ethnographic approach to gain access to the information. It was identified that evaluations of the work of this institution had three purposes: to verify the quality of projects before their approval, to give an account of the academic outputs obtained, and to evaluate the performance of researchers. No evaluations were made to estimate the changes generated, or to provide feedback on the projects in order to improve them. The university to which the center belongs needs to reform its evaluation system, so that it measures the public value generated through agricultural research projects. In view of this, a proposal is presented.