Over the past few years, increasing recognition has been given to the need to improve agricultural productivity while protecting or enhancing the natural resource base. In 1992, the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) recommended ecoregional research as a fundamental activity for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to address improvements in agricultural productivity and natural resource management. TAC acknowledged that the global research community did not have an appropriate paradigm for natural resource management research. The identification of a conceptual framework, together with appropriate research methods, was regarded as a goal of truly international relevance. Since then, various ecoregional initiatives have been organised throughout the world. They have been convened by sister CG centres and have involved various consortia of partner institutions, both international and national, including NGOs and universities. ILRI is participating in several of these consortia with varying degrees of success, as approaches, methods, mechanisms, institutional participation; expertise and funding have been quite diverse. It is recognised that ecoregional research is following an evolutionary process that builds on past experiences in farming systems research and other research frameworks. A workshop on ILRI's ecoregional research activities was convened at ILRI's facilities in Addis Ababa from 5-8 October 1998. The workshop had three major objectives: 1. To sharpen the focus of ILRI's ecoregional research. 2. To further identify commonalities in tools and new methods that can enable ILRI to do effective transregional research. 3. To identify improvements to the way in which ILRI does ecoregional research. Scientists from the ILRI Projects whose activities include a substantial portion of ecoregional research (now and in the future) were invited to present a paper on their current work, with some emphasis on tools and methodologies.