CGIAR

The  Type 1 Technical Reporting Guidance 2023 includes a section on "What’s new in 2023", outlining new functionalities in the PRMS Reporting Tool and changes to reporting requirements.

As new Technical Reporting updates are made, including to the PRMS Reporting Tool, update emails will be sent from performanceandresults@cgiar.org.

The Reporting updates section of the P&R Hub also lists any new reporting updates.

An overall Technical Reporting timeline can be found on the Reporting resources page of the P&R Hub. Upcoming key reporting dates and deadlines are presented on the Upcoming dates and events page of the P&R Hub. 

Any updates or changes to the reporting timeline will be communicated via performanceandresults@cgiar.org.

PRMS stands for Performance and Results Management System. It is the system that operationalizes the CGIAR Performance and Results Management Framework (PRMF) in terms of maintenance of standards, entry of planning and reporting information, quality assurance and data analysis. 

The system delivers responsible stewardship and assurance for funders, providing transparent, timely and robust evidence of CGIAR’s delivery against expectations — delivering accountability to beneficiaries and funders, providing the basis for learning, and supporting external communication of CGIAR results.

The PRMS Reporting Tool used to enter key results is a component of the broader PRMS.

The PRMS Reporting Tool is primarily used to enter key result indicators — information on and evidence for outputs, outcomes and impact — for the Type 1 Technical Reports.

Information can be provided on the following:

Initiative outputs

1.   Innovation development

2.   Capacity sharing for development (= long- and short-term trainee information)

3.   Knowledge products

4.   Other

Initiative outcomes

1.   Innovation use

2.   Policy change

3. Other

Impacts

In 2023, there will also be a function to report on engagement activities.

For detailed guidance on reporting, see the Type 1 Technical Reporting Guidance 2023 and the Standard Indicator Description Sheets (SIDS) for outputs, outcomes and engagement and the guidance documents for individual indicator categories. These resources can also be found on the Reporting resources page of the P&R Hub.

Select information entered into the PRMS Reporting Tool is quality assessed and then used to populate and inform other sections of the Technical Report and the CGIAR Results Dashboard.

For 2023, only results which have been completed by 2023 should be added.

The PRMS Reporting Tool allows for three roles:

1. Team member — Team members may be Work Package leads or Center representatives and they can enter data.

2. Coordinator — Coordinators may be the MELIA focal point or the project coordinator or someone else identified by the Initiative/Impact Platform/Project. They can enter data and also provide oversight, coordination and quality control for the data entered by team members. They ensure that the data is ready to go to the Initiative lead.

3. Lead — Initiative/Impact Platform/Project leads and co-leads can approve the data and send it for quality assurance. Initiative/Impact Platform/Project leads may also delegate this action to their PRMS coordinator.

To request access to the Tool, please email prmstechsupport@cgiar.org and copy the Initiative lead.

In this instance, please write to prmstechsupport@cgiar.org with a request to retrieve it, providing information on the result for ease of identification (number if known, title, type and which Initiative entered it).

It is important to continually save your progress as the PRMS Reporting Tool does not currently have an automatic save function.

Ensure that you regularly close and refresh the PRMS Reporting Tool (ensuring that you save your work first) as updates will be periodically made to the system. By refreshing the Tool you will be sure to be working with the latest version.

Evidence for results can be submitted in the PRMS Reporting Tool. It is possible to submit a maximum of six pieces of evidence per result (only provide one piece of evidence for each knowledge product).

Evidence should point to the CGIAR contribution and, when applicable, be appropriate for any selected scores/levels.

Provide links to the evidence—files cannot be uploaded. Providing links helps to control quality and prevents legal issues from arising regarding files for which we do not have consent to retain on our system, even if for internal purposes only. Within the tool, a text box is provided to enter details of where evidence can be found within the source link (e.g., page number, slide number, table number).

CGSpace links are mandatory only for knowledge products. Other evidence links are allowed for other indicator categories. When not using CGSpace links, it is recommended that you provide links to another official CGIAR repository. An option to use SharePoint is being developed, and updates will be provided when available.

If a blog article, video recording of a PowerPoint presentation, dataset, etc., is being reported as a knowledge product, it must be entered in CGSpace first to allow the PRMS Reporting Tool to retrieve it. If it is being used as evidence for another indicator, other links can be used.

Capacity sharing for development does not currently require the submission of evidence for quality assurance due to the time/resource burden this would entail and potential unresolved General Data Protection Regulation issues. It is understood that submitting a capacity-sharing-for-development result you have evidence to support the result, and, further, that should a sub-sample be required, you can make this evidence available.

For innovation readiness level evidence:

• Provide evidence/documentation in support of the current innovation readiness level.

• No evidence is required for the idea stage.

• Documentation may include idea notes, concept notes, technical reports, pilot testing reports, experimental data papers, newsletters, etc. Documentation may also be in the form of project reports, scientific publications, book chapters, or communication materials that provide evidence of the current development/maturity stage of the innovation.

• Examples of evidence documentation for different CGIAR innovations and readiness levels can be found here.

For policy change evidence, note that evidence of the CGIAR contribution might be embedded in evidence provided to demonstrate the occurrence of an outcome or the impacts of the outcome. For example, the CGIAR contribution could be explicitly mentioned in a policy strategy or described well in an impact assessment study.

Examples of evidence for policy change follow.

Evidence of CGIAR contribution to an outcome (stage 1):

• Citation of the CGIAR output used in the formulation of the outcome in the document used as evidence of an outcome.

• Acknowledgement of the CGIAR contribution in the document used as evidence of an outcome.

• Third-party evaluations of a policy outcome that describe the CGIAR contribution (collected or confirmed through interviews with policymakers).

• Documents that mention the CGIAR contributions to a policy contribution that (1) are co-authored by the organization responsible for the policy outcome or (2) include quotes from persons at the organization responsible for the policy outcome.

• Media stories that announce the policy outcome and mention CGIAR’s contribution to that outcome.

• Emails from persons at the organization responsible for a policy outcome that acknowledge CGIAR’s contribution to that outcome.

Evidence that a policy outcome has taken place (for stage 2):

• Provide a web link to a new or revised policy outcome — e.g., in the form of a strategy, policy, law, regulation, program, or investment.

• If a link to a policy document is unavailable, store a digital copy of the document in a folder for review.

• Provide a link to the specific website page of the policymaking organization announcing the new or revised policy outcome.

• Provide a link to a media story announcing the new or revised policy.

Evidence of impact of a policy (for stage 3):

• Strong evidence, such as a peer-reviewed publication or external evaluation, is required.

For innovation use, when usage numbers are reported (number of people, hectares, etc.) evidence must be provided.

If an Impact Area tag of 2 has been selected, at least one piece of evidence must be selected as being related to the Impact Area.

Also see the Type 1 Technical Reporting Guidance 2023 for details on submitting evidence.

CGSpace is a repository of agricultural research outputs and results produced by several CGIAR Centers, Initiatives and Platforms, and the CGIAR System Office. It indexes reports, articles, press releases, presentations, videos, policy briefs, etc. See this link to view the types of outputs in CGSpace.

A list of CGSpace contacts is available here. The first sheet of this document provides a list of the CGSpace leads, co-leads, and project focal point coordinators; the second sheet provides a list of Center library, communications, data and knowledge management staff.

Currently, you should rely on Center staff for uploading knowledge products to CGSpace. Researchers should use their Center’s current knowledge management system to inform their Center library/communications/knowledge management/data/or curation managers about knowledge products to be added to CGSpace.

You should ask your Center library team to ensure that the CGSpace record is accurate. The PRMS Reporting Tool will then refresh the data at the end of the reporting cycle, re-syncing all CGSpace links. There is therefore no need for you to re-sync any links in the PRMS Reporting Tool to update information.

For the geographic scope of a result, in 2023 there is the possibility to select sub-national as an option (this was not available in 2022), and then make multiple inputs. Sub-national inputs are available anytime a result is mapped to a country (e.g. a regional result where a country is also specified).

In addition:

When country is selected, multiple countries can be selected, unless the selection makes up a specific region, set of regions, or global location, in which case “region” or “global” should be selected.

When regional is selected, multiple regions can be selected, but if the selections include every region, “global” should be selected.

Virtual is presented as an option only for outputs of capacity sharing for development. It should be selected only if the output relates completely to virtual training. For blended virtual and in-person training, select the geographic location where most of the in-person training took place.

For knowledge products, use the geographic location, pulled from CGSpace, to indicate where the research was conducted or where the subject of the paper is focused.

For innovation development, choose the location where the innovation has been developed, not where there is potential for development.

Details on the QA process are presented in the Type 1 Technical Reporting Guidance 2023.

A knowledge product (KP) is defined by the CGIAR Open and FAIR Data Assets Policy using the term “data asset”. For reporting, users should only consider knowledge products that are integral to the Initiative/Project’s Theory of Change (ToC). Knowledge products within a ToC are meant for use by Initiative/Project actors (e.g., a policy brief produced as an Initiative’s output to support a policymaker’s action).

To be eligible for reporting, a knowledge product should be a finalized product. Drafts (e.g., a draft brief) are not suitable. Other “data assets” (e.g., videos) as defined in the policy or any digital product (e.g., internal reports) illustrating an output or outcome should not be reported under this indicator and should instead be used as evidence for the relevant output or outcome.

If a knowledge product aligns with the above criteria and adheres to the policy, it should be stored in CGSpace, following a typology set by the CGSpace community, as outlined in the CGCore and international standards.

The CGIAR Knowledge Management (KM) Community of Practice (CoP) defines the quality of knowledge products, particularly for gray literature (e.g., reports) applied across all Centers.

A list of knowledge product types is available here.

Guidance is available here: Submitting outputs to CGSpace Initiative collections.

You can report any knowledge product type, including internal documents, as a knowledge product as long as you follow criteria from your Center’s knowledge managers when depositing it in CGSpace. The CGSpace link to all internal documents can be found here. It is important to note that no draft documents are accepted in CGSpace (but internal documents can be).

Datasets can be deposited in any repository (mostly Dataverse). Their metadata, including a link to the original repository, should be added to CGSpace if they are to be reported as a knowledge product. An example of a dataset stored in the CIMMYT Dataverse with metadata added to CGSpace can be found here.

Knowledge products other than peer-reviewed journal articles should be reviewed using processes developed by Centers or Initiatives/Impact Platforms/Projects. The quality assurance team assumes that all knowledge products have gone through a standard review process before being reported.

Each Center knowledge management team can confirm Center guidelines for knowledge products. Please refer to the CGIAR Open and FAIR Data Assets Policy signed by all Centers.

Knowledge products should be uploaded in CGSpace with a different handle for each language and not as a combined file. The reason is that a document produced, say, in Spanish and English is really two different products aiming to serve two different groups of target users (e.g. someone in Peru and someone in the U.S.). Each product would then be reported as a separate result (knowledge product) in the PRMS Reporting Tool.

A curator can limit access to a knowledge product when submitting the material to CGSpace. If the access status for an entry needs to be changed after submission, the curator will need to contact a CGSpace administrator (Abenet Yabowork or Alan Orth) to make that change. It is possible to limit a document to CGIAR users (via Active Directory login) as well as to limit access generally until a certain date.

Published restricted articles can be entered into CGSpace. This is different from confidential evidence, where restrictions are imposed by a scientist on SharePoint or any other IT-recommended storage system at Center level. For confidential evidence, quality assurance assessors will require access to the confidential link.

If you tag a knowledge product with several Initiatives, that product will be represented equally among the Initiatives (e.g., in exports or the Results Dashboard). However, the first Initiative reporting a knowledge product will be responsible for addressing any comments from a quality assessor (e.g., a publication that was erroneously tagged as ISI by the library team in CGSpace can be questioned and the record should be updated in CGSpace during the assessment process).

FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) scores were introduced to align reporting with the CGIAR Open and FAIR Data Assets Policy. These scores are derived from existing CGSpace metadata to minimize data entry efforts, with equal weight assigned to each criterion.

If you wish to enhance the FAIR score for a knowledge product, liaise with your Center’s knowledge management team to implement improvements.

During the 2022 reporting period, FAIR scores were assigned across all knowledge products, irrespective of type. This approach aimed for simplicity as a starting point, with room for future enhancements.

Yes, both long-term and short-term training programs must be completed before reporting (to avoid reporting the same trainee multiple times across years).

In 2023 there is an option to enter numbers for “unknown”, when gender disaggregation numbers are unavailable. There is also an option to enter numbers for non-binary trainees.

Innovations can be reported at both the output and outcome level. The development of an innovation (at various stages) is an output. The use of an innovation is an outcome. You may first report an innovation at the output level. If the innovation advances and starts to be used, it should then be reported as an outcome.

The data fields for innovation development reporting can be found here.

Yes, all innovations that were previously reported need to be updated/validated. Upon confirming that the innovation development is “active”, the submitter is asked to validate or update data already in the PRMS Reporting Tool, and provide additional information on missing or new data fields.

Report varieties, lines or breeds at the level of their generic traits or characteristics (e.g., drought-tolerant and aphid-resistant groundnut cultivars). The specific number of new or improved lines/varieties can be specified under the innovation development section.

At the output level, you can assess a “generic” innovation readiness score for the core innovation. For example, you will have (only) a generic readiness score for that innovation. If it is level 7 in Kenya, level 3 in Peru and level 5 in India, only the highest score for the generic rank is retained. The Innovation team proposes the readiness score and provides evidence to support the score. This is reviewed by the CGIAR quality assurance team.

Innovation profiles are summaries of innovations designed and laid out in the format of a brief. You can request the production of an innovation profile, by the IPSR team, when you are ready to submit the additional information needed to create it (i.e. images or visuals that depict the innovation). View a published profile here.

To produce an innovation profile, the IPSR team exports the relevant data from the PRMS Reporting Tool, produces a pdf file and uploads it to CGSpace.

Further details on IPSR Innovation profiles:

Who: The IPSR team develops innovation profiles for those who request it.

When: An innovation profile is produced only after the quality of the innovation has been assessed. We have a support team set up to handle the layout and graphic design process. This team ensures that final drafts of the profiles are sent back to their owners for final review and then uploads pdf files of the profiles to CGSpace, ensuring that they have the appropriate tagging, metadata, etc. Once the profile is shared for review to ensure information accuracy. Only light/copy editing is permissible at this stage, such as addressing typos or grammatical errors. This approach is taken to prevent data discrepancies between the reported data and the summary. If there is a significant inconsistency between the data and the profile, the information should first be updated in the PRMS. It should then undergo a QA process before the profile development can proceed. This work is done on a rolling basis and depends in part on when the QA process is completed for an innovation, how quickly the final sign off is attained, and so on.

Minimum number: There is no minimum number of innovation profiles to aim for and producing them is not a numbers game (more is not necessarily better). We recommend that you ask yourself, “Did the Initiative invest time and money in that innovation in the reporting year?” If your answer is “yes”, then report it; if not, don’t.

Stage: You can request innovation profiles regardless of the stage of the innovation.

To set benchmarks and to demonstrate and track progress over time, it is important to track work across the portfolio at early as well as later stages of innovation development and use. If your Initiative/Platform/Project has invested time and financial resources into an idea for an innovation, its progress should be tracked over time.

Innovations can be reported at both the output and outcome levels. The development of an innovation (at various stages) is an output. The use and uptake of an innovation is an outcome.

Yes, it is correct that innovation use can be reported in two different ways:

1.     The IPSR pathway: supports innovation teams and partners to co-design innovation packages, assesses these packages to identify key bottlenecks/ opportunities and creates a starting point for developing scaling strategies

2.     The non-IPSR pathway: only records (i) innovation use type, (ii) innovation use quantity, and (iii) evidence to support innovation use reporting.

It is recommended to report innovation use through the IPSR pathway as this supports the development of:

• Scaling ambition: an agreed upon statement that includes information on where, with whom, for whom, and by when innovation scaling will contribute to outcomes and impacts.

• Innovation Package: enabling conditions that will support achieving the scaling ambition in a specific context.

• Scaling Readiness assessment: insight in how ready the innovation package is for scaling, what are the key bottlenecks and opportunities.

• (light) Scaling Strategy: initial multi-stakeholder discussions on how to overcome bottlenecks.

The IPSR pathway collects all data that is also collected through the non-IPSR pathway, but generates valuable learning for CGIAR and partners to develop innovation and scaling strategies. Furthermore, the IPSR pathway can be used to show progress towards impact at scale against a scaling ambition, rather than providing current innovation use numbers.

The data fields for IPSR pathway innovation use reporting can be found here.

This data can be collected through a standardized one-day IPSR workshop that brings together the innovation development team, partners and other experts to collectively think about obstacles/opportunities to scale the core innovation.

With some pre- and post-workshop work, this will provide all data required to document and report innovation use in the PRMS. Dedicated Training of IPSR Facilitator events are being organized to capacitate CGIAR and partner colleagues in organizing IPSR workshops.

As part of the IPSR pathway, only innovations that have been reported at output level as innovation development can be selected for reporting of innovation use at outcome level.

As part of the non-IPSR pathway, any innovation use can be reported.

Output reporting captures the development of “policy/organizational/institutional innovations”, which may include policy engagement strategies, business models, policy arrangements, finance and regulatory mechanisms, partnership models or mechanisms, public or private delivery strategies, etc.

Outcome reporting captures two different things:

• The use of these policy/organizational/institutional innovations by next and end users. This can include the use of partnership models (e.g., an innovation platform) or by extension officers, companies, or farmers. Other examples are a method for targeting beneficiaries for a government program or a method for registering farmer crop varieties.

• The policy change outcome refers more specifically to how CGIAR has influenced policy change. This often happens through direct strategic engagement of CGIAR staff in policy development, not necessarily through the use of a specific innovation. This would instead likely be achieved through a combination of information products and capacity outputs.

If, by policy reports, you mean what work you have been doing on policy — you could include this as a knowledge product output.

The policy change outcome level indicator is about changes that have taken place, with evidence of that change (or uptake for stage 1). For example, policy documents produced by external organizations to which CGIAR has contributed would be evidence of policy outcomes (and are especially useful if the CGIAR contribution is cited). Examples of these would be agricultural strategies, national investment plans, and nationally determined contributions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. 

A change in discourse, if you have evidence that it has been influenced by CGIAR policy work, is a policy change at stage 1.

The following stages for policy change are:

• Stage 1: Research taken up by next user, policy change not yet enacted.

• Stage 2: Policy enacted

• Stage 3: Evidence of impact of policy

Evidence is required for all stages. 

No. We have not been reporting our own internal use of innovations, new strategies or policies as outcomes. Being internal, they are in our sphere of control.

Currently, progress on a MELIA study is not tracked. It is only tracked when it is a result, e.g., complete.

Yes, your point of contact is the Project Coordination Unit (PCU). Please contact performancecoordinationunit@cgiar.org with any questions and to arrange support.

The primary guidance on this is to ensure that your reporting choices follow the Eschborn Principles (Appendix 1 of the document at this link). It is recommended to include those partners (or Initiatives/non-pooled projects/Impact Platforms) that made a significant contribution to the achievement of the result. This could take many forms and the threshold for inclusion is that the result would not have been achieved or reported in its current form without their support.

In the PRMS Reporting Tool, you should select the partner in the partner dropdown menu. Currently, the PRMS Reporting Tool does not have a function to indicate that a partner was the lead of a specific result, but you can indicate in the description of that result the contribution of the non-CGIAR partner.

The PRMS Reporting Tool provides the feature of assigning a primary contributor to a CGIAR Center, however this feature is meant to identify from within CGIAR which Center led the work rather than which of all partners led the work.

One example of when to report non-pooled funding would be when project funds pay for a part of a result and the Initiative/Platform pay for another part. When put together, they generate better results. However, the contribution of each funding source should be made clear.

Another example would be knowledge sharing. If you have a training program and participants are coming from both pooled and non-pooled funding sources, then both funding sources would be reported.

The use of non-pooled funding can be found in the Eschborn Principles (Appendix 1 of the document at this link).