Strategic and Specific Objectives:

To promote, with an integral approach, the scientific-technological innovation of the Uruguayan agricultural sector, in order to improve its competitiveness at national and international level.

- To develop technologies, under a chain approach, that allow to diversify, differentiate and value products and processes (traceability, certification, marks, origin denomination), aiming at improving the competitive capacity of the national agro-industrial exporter model and its commercial insertion in the global environment, through keeping and widening markets, and fulfilling the increasing international requirements of quality standards, sanitary rules, innocuousness and animal welfare norms.

- To identify and develop new production alternatives, in order to achieve diversified production systems, which represent an opportunity for the improvement and sustainability of the national farmers incomes.

- To priorize low fixed costs or high-benefit/cost ratio production alternatives, through the improvement of the process efficiency, the improvement of productivity or the decrease of total costs.

- To develop activities that encourage vertical and horizontal integration, giving technical support through the technology communication and transference, in order to stimulate the development of production and technologic innovation associative systems which facilitate a more competitive insertion in the national and globalized international market.

- To contribute to the consolidation of the scientific-technological wealth and to the conform of a requisite number of thinking people at national and regional level, generating and adapting new technologies to advance towards the frontiers of knowledge and sponsor relevant technological innovations (TICs, biotechnology, bioinformatics, satellite agriculture, bioenergy and others) that will be real technological transitions, in order to contribute to diminish the gaps with the developed world, to the improvement of the agribusiness competitiveness, and to the promotion of the agriculture of knowledge.

- To support the formulation of policies that reinforce and deepen innovation and contribute to a sustainable competitiveness.

To contribute to the environmental sustainability of the agricultural production broadening the horizons for its short, medium and long term growth.

- To focus in a proactive way the research and development of environment friendly technologies (mitigation of climatic change effects, natural resources conservation and management, genetic resources and biodiversity protection and use), in order to maintain in a sustainable way the production foundation for future generations.

- To strengthen the institutional capacities at national, regional and local level activating strategic alliances with the public and the private sectors, to consolidate innovation processes pointing at the agri-production development alternatives considering the environment preservation.

- To develop research and innovation to add value through products differentiation processes, which are based on the use of good practices and certification protocols, and that consider environmental friendly technologies founded on biodiverse production processes.

- To promote technologies and practices of environment management, economic and socially sustainable (organic production, ecocertification, agro-eco-tourism, diversified production systems, environmental services such as carbon market).

To look after and to strengthen those aspects that permit the development of an agriculture with social fairness.

- To carry out traditional and non traditional R+D methodologies, with a multi-institutional focus of regional development, which value the local knowledge and contribute to improve living conditions in rural areas, generating options for the foundation of production systems with emphasis on small farmers, that permit their insertion in the market in a sustainable way.

- To deepen the interaction among the agents of the rural sphere, adecuating research actions so that they contribute to find solutions to production and environmental problemas, recognizing the importance of repairing the social and cultural tissue asociated to the agricultural production.

To impel the interinstitutional articulation and coordination with the different research institutes, universities, farmers and industrials associations, and those responsible and managers of the national scientific and technological policy, based on the development of knowledge and innovation networks, looking for efficiency and effectiveness in problems solving and opportunities utilization, aiming at the obtention of impact results.

- To sponsor and co-finance R+D+I strategic alliances, agreements and projects, aligned with the Science, Technology and Innovation National Policy, in order to concentrate efforts, promote and strengthen scientific cooperation and collaboration among the different agents, encouraging multidisciplinary teams integration and the incorporation of technical progress with the production activity.

- To strengthen the integration of the national agribusiness relevant agents, through the Regional Advisors Council and the Working Groups, to the continuous process of planning, monitoring and evaluation of INIA research projects, technology communication and transference.

- To deepen in effective mechanisms that permit to protect and recognize the intellectual property rights, in order to create a favourable environment to foster innovation capacity.

- To identify and to priorize research on relevant and pertinent topics, common and shared by the involved agents, on which the benefits, contributions and risks of facing new challenges are established, and the rational use of the available resources is promoted.

- To intensify the international technical cooperation and the relationship among excellent world centers, seeking to contemplate common interests, reciprocal benefits and complementarities of resources, as well as to observe, to adequate and to adopt global technical-scientific progress to the national reality and needs.

- To strengthen researchers training in aspects related to networks management in order to consolidate the networks in creating value and forcing the technological innovation throughout time.

- To support the research results transference to the surroundings, to make them available, contributing to generate confidence to strengthen the networks activities.

To encourage the human resources integral development, stimulating the strengthening of its knowledge, abilities, skills, attitudes and values, that allow them to manage, inspire and adapt to the changes in the surrounding, looking for a transparent and highly competitive performance which set them as professional referents at national and regional level.

- To renew permanently the organizational strategy, through a refreshing and knowledge-intensive culture, aiming at rethinking the institution within increasingly dynamic and complex contexts.

- To develop and to consolidate the work competencies of researchers and supporting personnel to carry on R+D+I activities in all the innovation process areas, aiming at science and technology vertiginous progresses.

- To motivate the human capital of the Institution and monitor the conditions, working environment and climate, stimulating a culture of participation, growth, continuous learning, commitment, solidarity, risponsibility, transparency and self-evaluation that  involve all the organization levels, seeking to develop a high-quality scientific-technological and human Institute.

- To establish an institutional structure making sure appropriate-quality human resources with the appropriate quality and quantity, articulate capacities, carry on team work and an integral management system, contribute to a better convergence and articulation among the captation, orientation and use of the physic, technological and economic-financial human resources, in order to attend the Institution competitive sustainability.

- To measure and evaluate the intangible assets (knowledge and intellectual capital management) that support the organization implementation and strategic development, through a managment information system, and the definition of consistent indicators, which allow knowing and managing the value creation processes, for its clients and its environment.

Strategic Guidelines -

1. Research lines

- To align the research topics to the Mision, the Vision, the Institutional Values, and the Strategic Objectives, in the frame of the National policies.

- To make sure the scientific-technological quality of the research projects, tending to a larger participation of those researchers related to the items and the involved disciplines, seeking to reinforce the requisite number of critical masses, in a context of transparency of the technological management and the optimization of the use of resources.

- To lead the research projects according to the enlarged demand at agro-industrial chains level, through the prospection institutional mechanisms (Regional Advisors Councils, Working Groups, Technological Tables, Technical Workshops, Consultancies and researchers) priorizing relevant topics and considering problems and opoortunities.

- To strengthen the dinamic building of knowledge and innovation networks, through the development of multidisciplinary and interinstitutional teams, seeking to promote, reinforce and improve the knowledge flow exchange to potentiate the institutional sinergies and impacts.

- To guarantee convergence with the sustainable development, adopting a holistic and integral approach, which should consider production improvement, with a harmonic integration among the economic, environmental and social scopes.

- To stimulate the competitive, fair and sustainable rural development in an effective way through actions that re-value the territorial dimension and recognize the complementarity between agriculture and other economic activities that contribute to strengthen and stimulate the rural populations welfare in an effective  way.

Strategic Guidelines

3. Human Resources

- To develop at the highest academic level, continuous training and updating programs for the human resources of the Institute seeking for excellence, in order to be able to perform successfully in a changing and more demanding environment.

- To incorporate, reassign and separate personnel according to the operational needs derived from plans and goals to achieve, modernizing the recruiting and personnel selection systems, encouraging induced retirement plans and/or pre-pension systems.

- To stimulate collaboration in the academic sphere, promoting assistantships, tutor ships, and personnel recruiting under first working experience regime.

- To develop management tools for human resources based on working competencies criteria (competitive wage policy, career plans, profile description, performance evaluation, recognition, among others) in order to achieve personnel successful performance.

- To promote the INIA personnel internal participation, facilitating and organizing fluent communication channels, exchange of ideas and meditation spaces about management aspects, and continuous improvement and efficiency in achievement of the institutional objectives.

- To develop an ambit where the personnel keeps motivated, creation, innovation and execution capacity are valued, as well as multidisciplinary work together with team work, and the potentialities, skills and knowledge are estimulated.

- To look after aspects which enhance the commitment of the personnel with the Institution.

- To strengthen the tools which permit INIA personnel development toward the orientation of the client, strengthening the Institute performance in agribusiness and creating the Institutional Advisory System.