Office of the Director of Research

The desk a trial has to pass before it reaches a field.

The Director of Research heads the Directorate of Research, and this office is the directorate at work. It decides what the university studies and where — building the annual research programme from the problems reported by the extension side, a pest that has moved north, a variety that lodges in late rain, a soil that has stopped responding to the same fertiliser, and assigning each to a division, a season and a plot.

The office receives research proposals from the departments and the centre's divisions, checks each against the year's priorities and the land and budget available, and approves the annual research programme that goes to the Vice-Chancellor. Under it sit the university's research centre, its farms at Rajbiraj, and the winter, spring and summer programmes that follow the Terai's three cropping seasons.

It also holds what comes back: season-end reports from each trial, the data behind them, and the decision on whether a finding is solid enough to be passed to extension. Collaboration agreements with NARC, provincial agencies and other universities are signed through this office.

Findings do not stop at the plot boundary. What holds up over successive seasons is handed to the Directorate of Extension for demonstration on farmers' fields, and to the Technology Transfer unit for release as a recommendation.