ICRISAT has a comparative advantage in carrying out the project in India’s SAT, but the humid tropics falls outside its mandate. Multiple partnerships are needed to make the work effective and sustainable. Three institutions bring special skills and talents to the table as partners in this initiative.

The National Center for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP), the policy research and advocacy wing of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), is the main partner responsible for the conduct of VDSA in the states in East India. NCAP has experience in managing the Social Science Information Repository (SSIR) which was patterned along the lines of VLS. Keeping NCAP actively involved in the project will enable VDSA's long-term sustainability in India. NCAP will collaborate with partners in the Indian national program to fulfill the project objectives in Eastern India; and will also collaborate with IRRI and ICRISAT in the rice belt and SAT zones, respectively.

Collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) builds on earlier survey work that laid baselines for the analysis of improved rice productivity in stress environments in several districts in East India. ICRISAT and IRRI will provide guidance on planning and implementing special-purpose surveys. IRRI will have oversight and responsibility for the VDSA work in Bangladesh, aided by its rich experience in collecting survey data in Bangladesh. It pioneered the use of so-called ‘loop’ surveys in evaluating the impact of technological change on a small sample of villages and households over several decades in the Philippines.