This report emphasizes the core importance of science, and its contributions to the high rates of return to investments in R&D, albeit with a broader view of what constitutes science and its implications for co-creation and application of knowledge. It recognizes the potential role of the CGIAR’s new focus on a results-based framework and large-scale programs in the context of the changed location and size of poverty and food security, and the immediate implications of an outcome focus for agricultural research and development. The report describes the landscape of actors and activities, as well as the diversity and resource endowments of the institutions at the international, regional and national levels related to agricultural research for development.