This article reports on the profiles of the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in the three Maghreb countries: Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, through their research policies, human resources, governance, funding and scientific production. A bibliometric study was carried out for the three selected countries based on the Scopus database covering the period between 2005 and 2019. The research shows the distinctive case of Tunisian growth of scientific production compared to the other two countries; it also stresses the universities' emergence as a major research actor, thus challenging the predominance of the public mission-oriented institutions dedicated to agriculture and veterinary sciences. Finally, it indicates significant differences between the three countries concerning governance and funding, and human resources. Overall, the NARS in the three countries are still very fragile, and a need for significant changes in the research policy making is certainly required to overcome these shortcomings.