Spatial Focus of MSc and PhD Agricultural Research in Denmark, U.S., and Canada

ABSTRACT There is a strong focus in agricultural higher education thesis projects on lower levels of spatial scale such as molecular biology, at the expense of broader systems focus at the farm, landscape, and regional levels. We found that MSc and PhD projects over three years in three countries were consistent in this basic research emphasis. A majority of students in agricultural research currently focus on topics at the molecular, basic process, and individual organism levels, as revealed by our evaluation of MSc and PhD thesis topics in Denmark, U.S. and Canada between 1999 and 2002. There are 2.1 times as many MSc topics and 3.5 times as many PhD topics on molecular, basic process, or the organism level compared with research projects that deal with field or whole farm, landscape, or higher levels of aggregation. While there is value in exploring the mechanisms of biological processes in alternative agricultural systems, a relative lack of attention to higher scale questions may cause researchers to immerse in details while losing sight of relevance and applications. We attribute this to the disciplinary tradition that dominates many agricultural universities and the current emphasis on research that can produce patents and commercially realizable results. There is limited attention given to farming and food systems and to such critical questions as development of multifunctional agriculture, as observed from the snapshot of three years' data. The narrow focus of thesis research suggests that major challenges exist in enabling future agricultural researchers to develop new methodologies and achieve practical results useful in solving a large proportion of real-world problems in agriculture.