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Learning selection revisited: How can agricultural researchers make a difference?
Abstract
Ten years ago we developed, and published in this journal, the learning selection model to describe the development and early adoption of researcher-developed agricultural equipment in Southeast Asia. In this paper, we update the innovation histories of the three main technologies upon which the model was based and carry out some mapping and analysis of the post-harvest research networks in three countries. We find that the evolutionary algorithm based on interactive experiential learning remains valid. However, in the case of the most successful technology - the flat-bed dryer in Vietnam - the R&D team did not withdraw once a critical mass of manufacturers and users were familiar with the technology, as the model says should happen, but rather continued to champion the technology. In the process they developed major improvements to the original design, and a new type of dryer. They achieved far greater impact than any other team. They were successful largely because they were able to work with the same networks of partners, in the same innovation trajectory, for 25Â years. We find evidence of institutional support in working in this way. Their role was to make the major modifications while local users, manufacturers and promoters made local adaptations and 'bug fixes'. This way of working is similar to that of plant breeders working for the public sector and by many researchers in the private sector. However, current trends in international research towards 'projectization' on one hand, and the requirement to produce international public goods (IPGs) on the other means that researchers do not stay working for long enough with the same partners because funding keeps changing, nor do they work locally enough because of the expectation that they should generate new IPGs from scratch every one or two project cycles.
... These elements help understand how the concepts of plausible promise and rational myth relate to industrial symbiosis. Doutwhaite et al. (2001) introduced the concept of plausible promise (PP) as an interface between scientific innovation and practical application in an agricultural context (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010). As a response to the failure of the standard "technology transfer" pathway in which innovations are transferred at the end of the development process, leading to end-user inadequacy and rejection (Chambers and Jiggins, 1987), they propose an alternative "follow-the-technology" pathway in which innovations are co-constructed by researchers and end users. ...
... In the field of public participation, these two level of involvement can be related to the distinction between a closed and an open mode of response (Rowe and Frewer, 2005). They also directly refer to the learning selection process described by Douthwaite and Gummert (2010), in which the purpose is to have the actors shift from consultation ("mobilization") to collaboration ("integration") and lastly to "control" the initiativewhich is the moment when actors shift from being the target of the RM to taking over the role of initiating actors. To link with the IS framework, it is necessary to consider the relation between the initiating actor and the target actor. ...
... We also observed that the initiating actor often varies from one discourse to another over the lifespan of one initiative, and that the target of one action can become the initiator of further actions (as described by the theoretical framework of Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010). Thus the adjective "facilitated" is not necessarily appropriate to qualify an IS-I as a whole, but may more appropriately qualify certain stages of the initiatives. ...
In an industrial symbiosis initiative (IS-I), an initiating actor faced with a situation aims to enroll other actors in a collective action, or response, to address the situation. The rational myth theory embeds this “situation-response” pair. This paper explores the relevance of rational myth, along with that of plausible promise, to understand the emergence and development of IS-Is. We adapt the definition of these two concepts to IS and illustrate how they take shape with real case studies, by conducting the qualitative analysis of 14 French IS-Is. We demonstrate the potential of this framework to shed new light on IS-Is, and address a new range of questions for the dynamic analysis of initiatives. This paves the way to study the role of plausible promises in the initiation and development of IS-Is, and the design of discourses that enhance initiatives in situations of high potential of synergy.
... Fostering gender-inclusive innovation processes demands investment in both the capacities and empowerment of individual farmers as well as structural change to the systems they live and work within (Farnworth, Stirling, Chinyophiro, Namakhoma, & Morahan, 2018;Kingiri 2013;Pyburn, 2014). Douthwaite and Gummert (2010) argue, partly in responses to overly systemic analyses of innovation, that the issue in agriculture, today, is not technological scarcity but rather innovation capacity scarcity. Together with other researchers, Douthwaite and Gummert developed a 'learning selection' model which is built on an analogy with Darwinian natural selection. ...
... Finally, beneficial technologies are diffused to other territories. The consequence is that the 'technology increases in fitness' (Douthwaite & Gummert 2010;Douthwaite, Keatinge, & Park, 2002). However, their gender-blind analysis raises the concern that they have ignored how gender is embedded in innovation systems and processes in subtle but powerful ways and has important effects on innovation potentialwhether or not efforts are made to measure these effects. ...
... In the Introduction, we highlighted a learning model of innovation processes which is based on a Darwinian model of technologies moving towards fitness through a constant process of learning and adaptation (Douthwaite & Gummert, 2010). This is posited as a benign and optimistic model with constant evolution toward beneficial outcomes, provided the right institutional conditions are facilitated. ...
Tempered radicals are change agents who experience the dominant culture as a violation of the integrity and authenticity of their personal values and beliefs. They seek to move forward whilst challenging the status quo. Does the concept provide a useful analytic lens through which the strategies of women and men farmer innovators, who are ‘doing things differently’ in agriculture, can be interpreted? What are their strategies for turning ambivalence and tension to their advantage? The paper uses research data derived from two wheat-growing communities in Oromia Region, Ethiopia, an area characterized by generally restrictive gendered norms and a technology transfer extension system. The findings demonstrate that women and men innovators actively interrogate and contest gender norms and extension narratives. Whilst both women and men innovators face considerable challenges, women, in particular, are precariously located ‘outsiders within,’ negotiating carefully between norm and sanction. Although the findings are drawn from a small sample, they have implications for interventions aiming to support agricultural innovation processes which support women’s, as well as men’s, innovatory practice. The framework facilitates a useful understanding of how farmer innovators operate and in particular, significant differences in how women and men interrogate, negotiate and align themselves with competing narratives.
... This is recognised in the agricultural innovation systems approach which conceptualises innovation as a co-evolutionary process of interactive development of technology, practices, markets and institutions (Klerkx et al., 2012). The creative, non-linear change process of innovation means that an agricultural innovation system (AIS) has the characteristics of a complex adaptive system (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Hall and Clark, 2010;Spielman et al., 2009). Therefore, aspects of complexity relevant to AIS are the large number of actors and artefacts (e.g. ...
... Considerable research has been undertaken in the field of agricultural innovation systems (Hall, 2005;Lambrecht et al., 2014;Leeuwis et al., 2014;Nettle et al., 2013;Pant, 2012), technological innovation systems (Markard and Truffer, 2008;Musiolik et al., 2012), open innovation (Chatenier et al., 2010;Hueske et al., 2014;Rufat-Latre et al., 2010;Smart et al., 2007;Traitler et al., 2011), and open innovation ecosystems (Adner, 2006;Adner and Kapoor, 2010;Boly et al., 2014;Rohrbeck et al., 2009) to elucidate the specific features of innovation capacity. These studies differ in the level at which they explore innovation capacity, ranging from individuals (Chatenier et al., 2010;Hueske et al., 2014) to organisations or firms (Brusoni and Prencipe, 2013;Rohrbeck et al., 2009;Rufat-Latre et al., 2010;Traitler et al., 2011) to projects or programmes (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Nettle et al., 2013) to networks (Musiolik et al., 2012;Smart et al., 2007). ...
... Actors at different AIS levels were identified using actor network mapping (Ortiz et al., 2013) conducted in workshops and interviews. These described the individual-, organisation-, project-and network-level actors and the capabilities they contributed to the project (Beers and Geerling-Eiff, 2013;Douthwaite et al., 2009;Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Hermans et al., 2013). ...
Problems in agriculture are increasingly recognised as complex, uncertain, operating at multiple levels (field to global value chains) and involve social, economic, institutional, and technological change. Combining these changes to address agricultural problems is a non-linear process in which innovation emerges from distributed collaboration among heterogeneous actors interacting with and responding to continuously changing external environments. This has implications for how research organisations support innovation and navigate complexity to achieve impact. Few studies have systematically evaluated how research project actors coordinate capabilities across multiple levels from the individual to the network and adaptively respond to changes in the innovation system to successfully create impact.
To address this gap, this paper presents an analytical framework based on the broader concept of innovation capacity. Innovation capacity is built through practices, routines or processes to mobilise, combine and create resources and capabilities to successfully innovate. Capabilities can be divided into: (a) innovation capabilities, which are the processes for exploring and exploiting opportunities to innovate, (b) adaptive capabilities, which are the development and adaptation of resources and capabilities toward the changing environment in which innovation is undertaken, and (c) absorptive capabilities, which are the processes for acquiring, assimilating and transforming external knowledge. These capabilities operate at and are linked across different levels in the innovation system to create innovation capacity at multiple levels in the agricultural innovation system.
The analytical framework is applied to two innovation projects tackling agricultural problems of differing complexity; sustainable land management in New Zealand hill country and improving lamb survival on-farms. Application of the framework highlights the importance of evaluating the interactions among project resources and capabilities at multiple levels to understand how these were successfully coordinated to create individual, organisational, project and network capacities to achieve impact.
... From R&D actors' point of view, supporting the design of these systems on farms raises new challenges, such as venturing off the paths historically explored in research (linked to the productivist paradigm); producing knowledge by navigating the many unknowns on agroecological systems (Brugnach et al. 2008); and taking into account the diversity inherent to the situations in which farming is practised (Bell et al. 2008). In order to address these challenges, many authors argue that farmers themselves should design farming systems tailored to their own socio-technical and ecological situations (Dolinska and d'Aquino 2016;Waters-Bayer et al. 2009;Dogliotti et al. 2014;Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). Moreover, scientists as well as public policies have stressed the importance of studying and scaling out farmers' innovative practices to fuel and foster agricultural innovation systems/agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (Šūmane et al. 2018;Klerkx et al. 2010;Fieldsend et al. 2021;EIP Agri EU, 2020). ...
... Other authors-mostly social scientists-have explored agricultural innovation processes, as well as the outscaling and upscaling of grassroot innovations, highlighting their characteristics and development conditions. The 'learning selection model' (Douthwaite 2002;Douthwaite and Gummert 2010), for example, identifies several steps in technological innovation processes, inspired by evolutionary science. Several authors have studied innovation journeys and shown that these processes require adaptive management, so as to handle and foster reformism within institutional environments, local contexts, and the mindsets of actors and their relations with one another (Klerkx et al. 2010;Hornidge et al. 2011;Djanibekov et al. 2012;Hermans et al. 2013Hermans et al. , 2016Wigboldus et al. 2016;Cofré-Bravo et al. 2019). ...
Over the last few years, an increasing number of agricultural R&D actors have sought to discover and get to know farmers’ practices that they consider as innovative, unconventional, or promising. We refer to these approaches, all of which aim to support the design of farming systems, as ‘farmer innovation tracking’. There is still a lack of knowledge, however, about the specificities of the approaches adopted to track innovations and how they contribute to design processes. To explore these questions, we studied 14 initiatives in France led by actors from different R&D networks. We analysed the data collected using agronomy and design science concepts. Three outcomes emerge from this work. (1) We shed light on the common features of innovation tracking. We outline five stages that structure all the approaches: formulating an innovation tracking project, unearthing innovations, learning about them, analysing them, and generating agronomic content. (2) We characterize six contributions of farmer innovation tracking to design processes: giving rise to creative anomalies, shedding light on systemic mechanisms to fuel design processes on other farms, uncovering research questions, stimulating design in orphan fields of innovation, circulating innovation concepts, and connecting farmer-designers with each other. (3) Finally, we highlight three tracking strategies: the targeted tracking of proven practices, the targeted tracking of innovations under development, and the exploratory tracking of proven practices. This article is the first to propose a theorization of the farmer innovation tracking approaches, thus enriching the agronomic foundations supporting farming system design. The purpose of our paper is not to provide a turnkey method, but to highlight concepts, mechanisms, and points of reference for actors who might wish to develop farmer innovation tracking in different contexts in the future. By revealing their contributions to design processes, this article seeks to contribute to the institutionalization of innovation tracking.
... Prost et al., 2018). Douthwaite et al. (2002) and Douthwaite and Gummert (2010) introduced the term Learning Selection to describe the process by which the generated variation is evaluated and discarded, or remoulded and included in practices. The CAS perspective suggests that project design and management should (i) foster variation in agents, artefacts, strategies; (ii) stimulate variation in interaction patterns to generate novelties for the Learning Selection process; (iii) support selection processes to better allow survival and spread of the selection results (cf. ...
... Experiments, however, may fail and consortium actors may develop different priorities than to devote energy to the STE. While sustainability transition experiments also provide insights when they fail, the principle of learning selection (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010) calls for termination of experiments that do not show the capacity to mobilise adequate levels of input and process features. Such risk of 'losing the project' will stimulate organisations to consider whether projects contribute to strategic goals, or are just part of 'doing projects' as a business model. ...
Context
Despite a wealth of analytical knowledge on factors and processes that operate to slow down or impede sustainability transitions in various sectors of society, design-oriented researchers face a lack of guidance on the ‘how to’ question for developing knowledge to support sustainability changes. From 2007, we crafted co-innovation as an approach for governance and management of change-oriented projects, combining three domains; a complex adaptive systems perspective, a social learning setting, and dynamic monitoring and evaluation.
Objective
This paper sets out to describe the co-innovation approach and draw lessons from its application in projects on ecological intensification in Uruguay and the European Union.
Methods
We used an analytical framework for evaluating sustainability transition experiments, which considers project features that provide insights into the contribution to sustainability transformations by project outputs, outcomes, processes and inputs, and their interactions. Empirical information on 6 cases from 3 projects was collected through in-depth interviews with former project staff, group discussion, and project documentation. This enabled a reflexive evaluation of co-innovation.
Results and conclusions
Outputs showed substantial variation among the cases despite a similar approach to project governance and management. More significant contributions to sustainability transitions were associated with in-depth project preparation, a focus at the farm-level instead of the crop or field level, connections during the project's lifetime with regional innovation system actors, and frequent facilitated interactions among project actors to reflect on results, wider system implications, and project direction. We discuss the results in relation to the three domains of co-innovation. To enhance the role of projects in destabilizing currently unsustainable systems we highlight: reconsidering the role of projects as a business model; stimulating institutional learning from previous change-oriented projects; and making funding more adaptive to evolving project needs.
Significance
With most of the budget for agricultural research-for-change spent through projects, how projects are conducted is a critical determinant of the rate of sustainability transitions. Effective disruption of unsustainable practices through project interventions requires rethinking linear cause-effect relations to include project governance and management approaches based on complex adaptive systems thinking, social learning settings, and monitoring geared to adaptation and learning.
... The second approach builds on the institutional renewal of innovation economics around the concept of an innovation system (Clark 2002;Touzard et al. 2015). It offers a more radical break away from the linear innovation model (Klerkx, van Mierlo, and Leeuwis 2012), in particular restructuring qualitative methods in terms of the impact pathway (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). Furthermore, it uses instruments of measure, but not necessarily those of quantification. ...
... The CGIAR (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) operated this break incrementally over the last decade (Hall et al. 2003) and largely contributed this way to a specific trajectory and methods, referred to hereafter as 'impact pathway approaches' (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). These approaches build upon the institutional framework to explain the critical factors in organizing interfaces between actors in the research process that produce the reality of impacts and their nature. ...
The need for technological transition and the context of the privatization of public research funding both challenge the evolution of methods to assess the impact of research in the agricultural and food sectors. We analyze this evolution through a literature review and an examination of a range of case studies on research completed in developing countries. In the first part, the results stemming from the former analysis question the controversies raised by quantitative approaches. In view of these controversies, we then examine the methodological innovations taking place in a qualitative approach. A survey of case studies ultimately helps to characterize the strategic resources that research generates with a view to improving its impact on innovation and development.
... Our results illustrate the importance of focusing on the early stages of stakeholder dialogue that are generally overlooked. We show that the implicit hypothesis of an optimal plausible promise (Beuret, 2006;Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010) is far from a general rule, even though it may be valid in some circumstances (e.g. as shown in the results for the second session of plausible promises, see Fig. 3-D2). However, one major finding of our study contradicting this hypothesis is that, in our case study, plausible promises with very little specific information can be sufficient to get stakeholders to engage in a dialogue for collective management. ...
... Adjustments on the techniques, adoption of new techniques and availability of products for pest control were all observed but with substantial variation. The findings fit with other studies showing (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010). ...
How can we reach farmers with ecologically-based Integrated Pest Management (IPM) while creating a supportive context for adoption by farmers and relevant stakeholders? We assessed a new method – Adaptive Learning Networks – from reflections of varied stakeholders, farmer diaries and survey data procured in 2016 and 2019. This method is different from current IPM approaches, in that an explicit focus of learning was on engaging other stakeholders to enable adoption by farmers. For example, access to IPM products, providing new services and creating new policies were intrinsically part of the learning process, alongside learning on-farm IPM techniques. The main consideration is to ease farmers from being locked into the practice of pesticide reliance. The method facilitated multi-stakeholder learning that led to an adaptation of the IPM tools and techniques in the case examined. The priority of this new method was socio-technical learning, wherein varied stakeholders modify interactions, incentives and arrangements relating to pest management. Comparing 2016 and 2019 data, there was a significant reduction in insecticide, herbicide, and rodenticide applications. The observed outcomes indicate the potential to enable a wider spread of IPM technologies.
... OTE, assumes, a priori, that significant policy-related outcomes, such as the establishment of a biofortification breeding program, are not single, one-off events, but rather are generated and sustained over time by an interacting and co-evolving system of actors, knowledge, technology and institutions. These systems are called outcome trajectories (Paz-Ybarnegaray and Douthwaite 2017) and are bounded and described by building and annotating a timeline of the events and processes thought to have contributed to the Axelrod and Cohen 1999;Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). This is more precise than the implicit definition of an 'episode' in the literature as simply the historical narrative constructed to explain a policy change (e.g., Leksmono et al. 2006;Carden 2009). ...
Improving policies-broadly defined-is at the heart of the structural transformation agenda. This paper describes the use of a new evaluation method-outcome trajectory evaluation (OTE), based on both evaluation and policy process theory-to explore the influence of HarvestPlus, a large and complex research for development program focused on improving nutrition, on a specific policy outcome, namely the establishment of biofortification crop breeding programs in national agricultural research institutes in Bangladesh, India, and Rwanda. The findings support claims of significant HarvestPlus contributions while also raising issues that need to be monitored to ensure sustainability. The paper also discusses the pros and cons of the OTE approach in terms of methodological rigor and the accumulation of learning from one evaluation to the next. Keywords Theory-based evaluation · Policy process evaluation · Middle-range theory · Biofortification Résumé L'amélioration des politiques, au sens large, est au coeur du programme de transformation structurelle. Cet article décrit l'utilisation d'une nouvelle méthode d'évaluation-l'évaluation de la trajectoire des résultats (outcome trajectory evaluation ou OTE en anglais), basée à la fois sur la théorie de l'évaluation et du processus politique-pour * Boru Douthwaite
... Some farmers also explained that they had difficulties using a new practice, for example timing of fertilizer application. A major drawback of conservation agriculture is the complexity of practices (Erenstein et al., 2012), therefore, it is not only important to highlight specific components of agricultural systems (Erenstein et al., 2012) but also to foster interactive, experiential learning (Flor et al., 2017) and to create a network of credible partners (Douthwaite & Gummert, 2010). This has been highlighted in India where social networks have been shown to minimize abandonment of conservation agriculture (Mishra et al., 2018). ...
... Some farmers also explained that they had difficulties using a new practice, for example timing of fertilizer application. A major drawback of conservation agriculture is the complexity of practices (Erenstein et al., 2012), therefore, it is not only important to highlight specific components of agricultural systems (Erenstein et al., 2012) but also to foster interactive, experiential learning (Flor et al., 2017) and to create a network of credible partners (Douthwaite & Gummert, 2010). This has been highlighted in India where social networks have been shown to minimize abandonment of conservation agriculture (Mishra et al., 2018). ...
In Myanmar, 70% of the rural population engages in rice farming for their livelihoods. Since 2013, the government and development projects have introduced a variety of sustainable rice cultivation practices such as improved fertilizer-, water-, pest- and post-harvest management. A mixed method approach was used to gain a better understanding of adoption behaviour and livelihood changes. One hundred and twenty nine farmers participated in the study which revealed the adoption of sustainable practices; reasons include higher yields, reduced costs and labour savings. Reasons for non-adoption included unsuitable or expensive practices. We find that profitability analysis and partial budgeting calculations revealed an estimated increase in income (>0) of 113 USD/ha (SD = 90.64 USD/ha), due to an increase in yield and reduced costs. Furthermore, in-depth interviews revealed that farmers (n = 32) used this extra income for religious and social activities, for food, health care and education. They were able to expand their farm business and produce rice more sustainably. The paper thus contributes to the adoption literature by linking development project outputs to outcomes and impact. Concerted efforts by the government and development projects can enable farmers to produce cereals more sustainably and experience positive changes to their livelihoods and strengthen rural development at local and regional level.
... Researchers, hence, need to foster networks with practitioners and policymakers. Maintaining these networks can provide the institutional and organizational context for longerterm engagement with key stakeholders, an engagement that goes well beyond the normal 3-5 years' lifetime of a research project (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). ...
Climate change will have a largely detrimental impact on the agricultural sector. Reduced yields will lead to greater food insecurity and a rise in food prices. In response, researchers develop agricultural technologies and practices, collectively-known as climate-smart agriculture (CSA). Scaling or large-scale farmer uptake of CSA is often seen as the responsibility of downstream development practitioners. This, however, encourages a false dichotomy between ‘research’ and ‘scaling’. Such binary thinking poses two dangers. Firstly, when faced with donors’ understandable wish to see impact on the ground, agricultural research organizations succumb to ‘mission drift’ and engage in ‘development work’ for which they have little comparative advantage. Secondly, because scaling is seen as a ‘development’ as opposed to ‘research’ issue, the contribution that research can make is overlooked. We propose that agricultural research-for-development (AR4D) can contribute more to scaling by conceptualizing the process as a multi-faceted one that catalyses three interconnected and complimentary pathways: technology development; capacity development; and policy influence, each overseen by inter-disciplinary research teams.
... Farmers create different networks for generating and implementing innovations on the farm, depending on their motivations, innovation objectives, and resource endowments. Regardless of how agriculture innovation is shaped, it is acknowledged that farm innovation requires different sources of knowledge, material and financial resources, as well as psychological support, for which farmers draw on support networks (Douthwaite & Gummert, 2010). Therefore, farmers may engross in diverse approaches for constituting their supportive networks, which may help to strengthen their knowledge and information dissemination regarding farming purposes. ...
The system of innovation (SI) in the agriculture sector, termed as Agricultural Innovation System (AIS), is one of the most recent trends in innovation research, especially in the developing economies. This approach considers several factors such as actors, complex networks and learning, socio-cultural and political factors that affect the innovation process within a dynamic system. Using the AIS approach, the present paper explores the knowledge and learning interactions in the horticultural sector of Kashmir Valley of India, which offers a mix of both formal and informal activities. The research methodology is qualitative in nature based on both primary and secondary data. For primary data collection, apple growers, private and government sector actors were interviewed and secondary data is based on various reports and published materials related to the apple production in Kashmir. The analysis explores the interactions of knowledge production by formal and informal means in the horticultural sector specifically focusing on the informal ways. In the study, taking the case of canker disease treatment in apple trees by informal ways depicts the productive use of informal knowledge in the horticultural system. It was observed that many factors (social networks, life-long experiences, learning, coordination and group interactions) affect the informal knowledge generation process and the connectivity between formal and informal actors is lagging in the horticulture sector.
... The magnitude and complexity of the challenges in New Zealand"s land and water sectors require science and society to work in completely new ways. Future choices and decisions about resource management use will need to consider the complex socio-ecological (social, regulatory, economic, ecological and cultural) systems in which New Zealanders live (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Ekboir, 2003;Giller et al., 2008;Hall and Clark, 2010;Spielman et al., 2009). This will require New Zealand-appropriate models of engagement, and science-society interaction that moves beyond hypotheses that isolate parts of the socio-ecological system to those that incorporate complexity and address the adaptive nature of social systems (Koontz and Thomas, 2006;Newig, 2007;Patel et al., 2007;Reed, 2007). ...
The Collaboration Lab research programme is focused on the "Our" part of Our Land and Water National Science Challenge. Adversarial processes have dominated allocation and consent applications, leading to stalemate and inaction (Small et al., 2013). Land and water regulations are based on a linear input of science into policy (OECD, 2009; Weible et al., 2004) while taking a "decide and defend" approach to resource management planning (Robson, 2014). The magnitude and complexity of land and water challenges facing New Zealand require science and society to work together in new ways via New Zealand-appropriate models of engagement and science-society interaction. The value of collaboration has begun to be recognised in New Zealand. Social science research over the past 20 years has emphasised the importance of collaboration for achieving successful outcomes in complex systems. However, there are still gaps in our understanding: there is insufficient long-term evaluation of collaborative approaches; there is a paucity of studies on how researchers undertake interdisciplinary research; translating concepts of collaboration into practice has proven very difficult; and there is a lack of important information about Māori participation in collaborative processes. The research in the Collaboration Lab programme will help to address these gaps. This paper describes the programme"s three research projects, which commenced in late 2016. Project one will use practitioner insights on how the use of collaborative processes enables new practices, ways of organising and social relations in order to support improved decision-making and practice change. Project two will survey the participants of seven current limit-setting processes and the wider community. These surveys are designed to evaluate both the collaborative process and the outcomes of the collaboration. Project three will examine collaboration case studies using the Integration and Implementation Science (I2S) framework (Bammer, 2013) to understand if using the I2S framework could lead to improved outcomes in land and water management through improved researcher practice. Together these projects will enhance understanding of collaborative practice, weaving together centuries of focused practice in Māori tikanga and the leading edge of current collaborative practice from multiple fields to form new mātauranga, or practical wisdom. 2
... The establishment of networks provides institutional and organizational context for longer-term engagement with key stakeholders, an engagement that goes well beyond the normal 3-5 year lifetime of a research project. The authors of [73], for example, documented the long-term evolution and successful adoption of the rice flatbed dryer in Vietnam through continuous involvement of a research and development team from Nong Lam University. The impact of their work came as a result of sustained interaction with a tight network of partners, working in the same innovation trajectory, for 25 years. ...
Climate change will continue to have a largely detrimental impact on the agricultural sector worldwide because of predicted rising temperatures, variable rainfall, and an increase in extreme weather events. Reduced crop yields will lead to higher food prices and increased hardship for low income populations, especially in urban areas. Action on climate change is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 13) and is linked to the Paris Climate Agreement. The research challenge posed by climate change is so complex that a trans-disciplinary response is required, one that brings together researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers in networks where the lines between "research" and "development" become deliberately blurred. Fostering such networks will require researchers, throughout the world, not only to work across disciplines but also to pursue new South-North and South-South partnerships incorporating policy-makers and practitioners. We use our diverse research experiences to describe the emergence of such networks, such as the Direct Seeded Rice Consortium (DSRC) in South and Southeast Asia, and to identify lessons on how to facilitate and strengthen the development of trans-disciplinary responses to climate change.
... The main goal is not to provide quantitative economic measures, but to understand the process and interactions that led to an impact, to evidence the causal mechanisms at play, and to identify the contribution of research in this process (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). Such contribution often involves a non-linear, complex, multi-causal process, where multiple stakeholders and influential factors interact, both internal and external to research and innovation processes (Klerkx, van Mierlo and Leeuwis 2012). ...
Over the last decade, societal pressure has increased on public research agencies to provide evidence that their research contributes to achieve development goals. To address this challenge, the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development (Cirad), developed an ex-post impact assessment method based on the impact pathway approach, called Impact of Research in the South (ImpresS). The reconstruction of the impact pathway identifies and assesses research outputs, outcomes, and impacts on development over long-time spans, taking into account the contribution of other stakeholders, projects, and contextual factors. By applying mixed methods and participatory approaches, ImpresS involves key actors in assessing the contribution of research to impacts in innovation processes. Such a participatory approach raises, however, questions about the advantages and disadvantages of participation in impact assessment. This article examines whether and how participation affects the results of an evaluation and the methodological challenges this poses. The analysis is based on 13 case studies covering different innovation processes, countries, and time spans. The main results show that participation, combined with triangulation of information including quantitative and qualitative data, strengthens the explanation of the causal relationships among outputs, outcomes, and impacts. It helps reveal a large and diversified list of impacts based on the perception of actors, especially uncovering positive and negative impacts unexpected by researchers. However, participation may render other impacts less visible, especially those related to environmental and political issues. Furthermore, participatory evaluation entangles challenges linked to expectations, divergent perceptions, power dynamics, and social inequality, which must be carefully addressed to provide robust and transparent evaluation results.
... Regardless of how farm innovation is shaped, it is acknowledged that farm innovation requires different sources of knowledge, material and financial resources, as well as mental support, for which farmers draw on support networks (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Lambrecht et al., 2014;Oreszczyn et al., 2010), also called farmers' networks of influencers by Oreszczyn et al. (2010). Within these support networks, peers are often considered as most relevant, followed by family members and technical advisors (Gielen et al., 2003;Oreszczyn et al., 2010). ...
On-farm agricultural innovation through incorporation of new technologies and practices requires access to resources such as knowledge, financial resources, training, and even emotional support, all of which require the support of different actors such as peers, advisors, and researchers. The literature has explored the support networks that farmers use and the overall importance ranking of different support actors, but it has not looked in detail at how these networks may differ for different farmers. This study fills this gap by looking at farmer support network configurations through the lens of the social capital available to them in such configurations. Using a Chilean fruit-farmer case, we examine how different types of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) are used to achieve what has been called 'ambidexterity'. Ambidexterity implies both that open networks (based on linking and bridging social capital) are used to explore and access new knowledge and resources , and that closed networks (based on bonding social capital) are used to successfully implement and exploit new technologies and practices. Our findings show that farmers use all types of social capital-bonding, bridging, and linking-in their support networks, but that they have different configurations, five in this study. These configurations are based on personal motivations, innovation objectives, and resource endowments. Despite the different network configurations and types of social capital-which may be more balanced or less balanced in light of ambidexterity-farmers may achieve the same ambitions and type of innovations. A main theoretical implication is that the configuration of support networks is thus not a one-size-fits-all where each farmer's ranking of support actors for on-farm innovation is the same. This nuances earlier work and calls for more attention to a better understanding of how each support network configuration responds to a certain logic, and hence cannot be identified as superior or inferior.
... This challenges the notion of narrowly measuring predetermined outcomes following a linear cause-effect logic (Patton 2006). Complexity science is increasingly promoted for the analysis of dynamic and adaptive agricultural innovation systems (Ekboir 2003;Patton and Horton 2009;Douthwaite and Gummert 2010;Mayne 2012), but the challenges of evaluating a diversity of impacts at different scales (Joly et al. 2015) and beyond science and economic impacts (Joly et al. 2016;Gaunand et al. 2015) need to be taken into account. Open debates about the role of scientists in contributing to societal impacts and in assessing the impacts of the innovation processes to which they contribute are needed . ...
Most agricultural research organizations strive to address societal challenges and contribute to positive societal impacts. Fulfilling this ambition involves embedding a culture of impact in organizational culture, which, in our view, entails three main elements: understanding the role of the research community in contributing to impacts over the long term within the systems in which it operates; equipping researchers to support positive change; and implementing strategies that allow the culture of impact to percolate at various levels of the organization. To build just such a culture, in the past 8 years, Cirad, the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development, embarked on a transformational process, from which we draw key lessons. Building a culture of impact requires fostering transdisciplinary dialogue on the multiple roles of researchers, on their contribution to societal impacts, and on the relevance of this reflection. This involves adapting from pre-existing visions, interactions, and practices. Formalization in the organization's strategy and the action of leading change agents foster its institutionalization. Strengthening capacity to build shared visions of change and collective processes in research design , implementation, and evaluation while respecting the diversity of profiles and approaches in the organization favors appropriation. This requires adequate funding at the project, institutional and funding bodies level, and targeted communication to ensure buy-in by internal and external change agents. We argue that a culture of impact is a reflective culture and long-term dynamics that aims to overcome the dichotomy between research and development and bring agricultural research closer to societal needs.
... Research has been conducted on model-based tools and methods that can support co-design and coinnovation at the farm scale (see for example Dogliotti et al., 2004;Cerf et al., 2012;Dogliotti et al., 2014;Le Gal et al., 2011;Speelman et al., 2014) and at the scale of whole systems to foster sustainability transitions (Bos et al., 2009;Elzen and Bos, 2016). Other research has explored the operational challenges associated with participatory research, co-design and co-innovation (see for example Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Neef and Neubert, 2011;Sewell et al., 2014;Van Mierlo et al., 2013;Dolinska and D'Aquino, 2016;Botha et al., 2017;Turner et al., 2017), in particular how structural and institutional features of agricultural innovation systems may, or may not, support codesign and innovation processes (see for example Eastwood et al., 2012;Hermans et al., 2015;Schut et al., 2015;Turner et al., 2016), and how actors in agricultural innovation systems may be connected in co-design and innovation processes through innovation intermediaries and/or boundary objects (see for example Jakku and Thorburn, 2010;Klerkx et al., 2010;Tisenkopfs et al., 2015). ...
Research has identified an urgent need to renew agriculture's traditional design organization and foster more open, decentralized, contextualized and participatory approaches to design and innovation. While the concepts of co-design and co-innovation used in agriculture resemble features of open innovation, they may benefit from ‘inbound open innovation’ themselves through cross-fertilization with management studies, design science, science and technology studies, and organization studies. This special issue brings together different streams of research providing novel perspectives on co-design and co-innovation in agriculture, including methods, tools and organizations. It compares empirical experiences and theoretical advances to address a variety of issues (e.g., innovation ecosystems, collective design management, participatory design methods, affordances of system analysis tools and network leadership) that shed new light on co-design and co-innovation in support of sustainable agriculture and more broadly transitions towards a diversity of food systems and a circular bioeconomy. This introductory paper presents crosscutting insights and distills from these three directions for future research and practice in agricultural design and innovation: 1) Further opening design and innovation techniques and tools to better account for visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory expressions in evolving designs and what they afford users; 2) Further opening innovation networks in view of creating and stimulating integrative niches that can foster sustainability transitions, which also requires network managers instilling a reflexive stance of network members and broader awareness of power structures attached to organizational, sector and paradigmatic silos in agricultural systems; and 3) Further opening the range of innovation actors to include non-human actants to better account for the agency of the material and ecological.
... Kebede and Zizzo (2015) underscored the importance of social preferences in agricultural innovations in developing countries. Douthwaite and Gummert (2010) found out the reasons for flat-bed dryer becoming one of the most successful agricultural technologies in Vietnam. In this case, the R&D team did not withdraw when a critical mass of manufacturers and users were familiar with the technology, but rather continued to champion the technology. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to raise awareness on current shifting of R&D activities from agricultural-based Agriculture and agriculture-related Natural Sciences (ANS) to industrial-based Engineering, Computer, and Industry-related Sciences (ECI) in Southeast Asian (SEA) economies. This trend might cause stiffer challenges on effort to sustain food security in the region.
Design/methodology/approach
Five SEA countries were selected, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. R&D data were collected over the years 2001-2014. Collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and correlation.
Findings
Malaysia has been in the process of shifting from ANS to ECI cluster, whereas Vietnam and Indonesia followed the trend but about a decade behind; meanwhile, the Philippines and Thailand kept their focus on ANS clusters. Within the ANS cluster, Malaysia and Thailand leaned towards Modern Biosciences and Modelling (MBM) sub-clusters. The Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia were more focused on Agriculture and Conventional Biosciences (ACB) sub-cluster. ACB is more relevant and affordable to smallholder farmers. Shifting of R&D priority correlated with GDP per capita of SEA countries. Within ANS cluster, R&D activity in MBM increased but ACB decreased as GDP per capita increased.
Research limitations/implications
Data used in this study were limited to accessible 2001-2014 data in five selected SEA economies. Therefore, there is an open possibility for future research on extended timeline using more sophisticated data analysis.
Practical implications
Agricultural technology development should be relevant to needs of and affordable to smallholder farmers, as they are the primary food producers in developing economies.
Social implications
If the R&D activities continue to drift away from farmer’s needs, there will be a possible drawback of widening gap between developed agricultural technologies and absorptive capacity of smallholder farmers. Government institutions should revisit their R&D priority as the current trend could cause a serious obstacle in maintaining food security in the SEA region.
Originality/value
This frontier study provides an early warning for government in SEA economies and other developing countries for balancing between R&D for supporting smallholder farmers in food production and for enhancing national economic growth.
... These impacts emerged over the long term, from 10 to 30 years as others scholars have shown (Kristjanson et al., 2009). Consequently, and as we did in our study, research impact assessment needs to go beyond the horizon of a research project or program logic to encompass clusters of projects contributing to the same innovation trajectory (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010), even including other interventions that do not involve research but which may help address the problem identified by the actors (Joly et al., 2015;Alston et al., 2009). If not adequately addressed, this divide between short-term project-based planning and project-based research funding practices, on the one hand, and the long-term nature of research and generation of impacts, on the other, may contribute to a "culture of promised impacts" rather than a "culture of impacts" within agricultural research institutions (Leeuwis et al., 2017). ...
In a context of a severe funding crisis, donors and policymakers expect increased accountability from research organizations and convincing proof that public investments in research have significant and positive societal impacts. This article takes stock of the lessons learned from the use of a method (ImpresS) designed by CIRAD to analyze the impact of research undertaken in partnership with a range of different actors in a developing-country context. The method uses a case study approach, and relies on the evaluation of the impact pathway and on contribution analysis. Thirteen case studies were selected to represent the diversity of partnerships, research activities and types of innovation. The results confirm the diversity and complexity of the innovation processes encompassing the non-linearity of changes over extended periods, the diversity of impacts, the shifting roles of actors engaged in the innovation process, and the diversity of activities carried out by the research community to contribute to outcome and impact generation. Interactions between researchers and other actors throughout the innovation process appeared to play key roles along the impact pathway. Based on the 13 case studies, we identified four generic models through which research contributes to impact: participatory transfer of knowledge and technologies, co-design of innovation, support for the innovation process, and promotion of open innovation. Our results underline the need for research institutions to recognize and accept the diversity of functions fulfilled by researchers if they want to contribute in an effective manner to the generation of impacts. Another challenge is to learn how to take advantage of clusters of projects embedded in innovation pathways in order to sustain research activities over a long timeframe. Significance statement: Impact evaluation is increasingly being requested from the research community as a measure of accountability by both donors and civil society. Conducting it properly is challenging, especially in the context of developing countries. Quantitative studies are often biased toward expected and tangible impacts. Complementary qualitative approaches are focused on understanding causality and are more in line with the actors' participation in impact evaluation. CIRAD has developed a method and used it to assess 13 case studies involving research conducted in partnership in widely differing environments. Some main lessons learned include the long timeframe needed for impacts to be achieved, the diversity of impacts the research community needs to consider, and the multiple roles played by the research community in co-developing outcomes.
... This is happening despite lack of formalised and intentional targeting and training by agricultural advisory services. Douthwaite and Gummert (2010) consider that a key issue facing agricultural development is not technological scarcity but rather innovation capacity scarcity. The findings presented here suggest, however, that 'innovation capacity scarcity' may be a fallacious reading of the situation in some locations. ...
There is very little research on women in wheat in Nepal, and wheat is still considered a ‘man’s crop’. Consequently, extension services rarely target women, and women are not considered as innovators. However, research conducted in the Terai plains in 2014/15 shows that women are innovating in wheat to the extent that wheat farming is experiencing a shift from feminisation of agricultural labour towards women taking control over decision-making. Processes accounting for this include male outmigration, non-governmental organisation (NGO) work on promoting women’s equality which has developed women’s confidence, individual support from extension agents and strong cooperation between women to foster each other’s ‘innovation journeys’. Women who lived in seclusion 10 years ago are receiving recognition within their families and communities. This article provides recommendations for researchers, rural advisory services and other partners to bring their work in alignment with the realities of women wheat innovators.
... Research has been conducted on model-based tools and methods that can support co-design and coinnovation at the farm scale (see for example Dogliotti et al., 2004;Cerf et al., 2012;Dogliotti et al., 2014;Le Gal et al., 2011;Speelman et al., 2014) and at the scale of whole systems to foster sustainability transitions (Bos et al., 2009;Elzen and Bos, 2016). Other research has explored the operational challenges associated with participatory research, co-design and co-innovation (see for example Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Neef and Neubert, 2011;Sewell et al., 2014;Van Mierlo et al., 2013;Dolinska and D'Aquino, 2016;Botha et al., 2017;Turner et al., 2017), in particular how structural and institutional features of agricultural innovation systems may, or may not, support codesign and innovation processes (see for example Eastwood et al., 2012;Hermans et al., 2015;Schut et al., 2015;Turner et al., 2016), and how actors in agricultural innovation systems may be connected in co-design and innovation processes through innovation intermediaries and/or boundary objects (see for example Jakku and Thorburn, 2010;Klerkx et al., 2010;Tisenkopfs et al., 2015). ...
Research has identified an urgent need to renew agriculture's traditional design organization and foster more open, decentralized, contextualized and participatory approaches to design and innovation. While the concepts of co-design and co-innovation used in agriculture resemble features of open innovation, they may benefit from ‘inbound open innovation’ themselves through cross-fertilization with management studies, design science, science and technology studies, and organization studies. This special issue brings together different streams of research providing novel perspectives on co-design and co-innovation in agriculture, including methods, tools and organizations. It compares empirical experiences and theoretical advances to address a variety of issues (e.g., innovation ecosystems, collective design management, participatory design methods, affordances of system analysis tools and network leadership) that shed new light on co-design and co-innovation in support of sustainable agriculture and more broadly transitions towards a diversity of food systems and a circular bioeconomy. This introductory paper presents crosscutting insights and distills from these three directions for future research and practice in agricultural design and innovation: 1) Further opening design and innovation techniques and tools to better account for visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory expressions in evolving designs and what they afford users; 2) Further opening innovation networks in view of creating and stimulating integrative niches that can foster sustainability transitions, which also requires network managers instilling a reflexive stance of network members and broader awareness of power structures attached to organizational, sector and paradigmatic silos in agricultural systems; and 3) Further opening the range of innovation actors to include non-human actants to better account for the agency of the material and ecological.
... Instead, building on the gradual and so-called 'silent revolutions' that occurred in some Asian countries (Biggs and Justice, 2015), small-scale equipment should be targeted. Research and development agencies should engage in testing and adapting equipment (Biggs and Justice, 2015;Seck et al., 2012) and local manufacturing and maintenance of equipment needs to be stimulated (Curfs, 1976;Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010;Onwude et al., 2016;Seck et al., 2012). ...
Improvements in agricultural land and labour productivity are needed to meet the growing food demand and
reduce farmer poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives of this study were to (i) quantify variation in labour
inputs, yield and labour productivity among rice fields; (ii) elicit factors associated with this variation; and (iii)
identify opportunities for improving yield and labour productivity. The study was carried out in two contrasting
Beninese villages: Zonmon in the south and Pelebina in the north-west.
In Zonmon 82 irrigated rice fields were surveyed during the 2013 and 2014 dry seasons. In Pelebina 50
rainfed lowland rice fields were surveyed over three rainy seasons (2012–2014). Data on farmer field management practices and field conditions were recorded through interviews with farmers, on-farm observations and measurements. Stepwise regression analyses were used to identify variables associated with variation in yield, labour inputs and labour productivity.
Average yields were 4.8 ± 2.0 t ha−1 in Zonmon and 2.3 ± 1.2 t ha−1 in Pelebina. Average labour productivity,
however, was larger in Pelebina (17 kg of paddy rice person-day−1) than in Zonmon (8 kg of paddy
rice person-day−1). Relative yield gaps (43–48%) and labour productivity gaps (59–63%) were similar in the
villages. There was no trade-off between yield and labour or labour productivity within the villages, suggesting
that in many cases rice yields can be increased without additional labour inputs. The major labour-demanding
farming operations were bird scaring in Zonmon and harvesting and threshing in Pelebina.
We identified opportunities to improve rice yield and labour productivity, given current farmer knowledge
and resource endowment. Based on the statistical models fitted per village, increasing the average hill density
would result in up to 1.2 t ha−1 more yield, and up to 4 kg person-day−1 greater labour productivity for
Zonmon. Increasing the average field size and avoiding rice shading would result in up to 0.8 t ha−1 more yield,
and up to 17.1 kg person-day−1 greater labour productivity for Pelebina. Further enhancing yield and labour
productivity will require (i) introducing small-scale mechanisation and other labour-saving innovations, in
particular for labour-demanding farming operations such as bird scaring in Zonmon and harvesting and
threshing in Pelebina; and (ii) combining analyses of yields and labour productivities at field level with detailed
analyses of labour use and labour productivity at farm level. We found that, on average, one hectare in Zonmon
contributed twice as much to Beninese rice production than one hectare in Pelebina but with a two times smaller reward for farmer labour. This paradox of higher yields but lower labour productivity in such different rice growing environments and farming systems should be addressed in elaborating development policies.
... Literature shows that activities that aim at facilitating diffusion of new technological knowledge are an essential function of any innovation system (Hekkert et al., 2007;Johnson, 2001). Although other studies have indicated greater success and impact where the R&D team continued to champion the technology (Douthwaite & Gummert, 2010), the findings herein are an indication of what Mgumia et al. (2015) characterise as partially successful innovations. Such innovations are mainly multiplied and disseminated in informal and unsustainable project-based interventions that target a limited number of users over a short time-span. ...
Low uptake of improved technologies remains a challenge to enhancing agricultural productivity and food security in developing countries. This paper uses the agricultural innovations systems approach to analyse how the recently released hybrid banana varieties (HBVs) were developed, and how the interplay between processes and actors affect their uptake in central Uganda. The study used a qualitative research design employing a case study approach. Data were collected through 20 key informant interviews and 5 focus group discussions with purposively selected actors and farmer research groups respectively, and analysed using thematic-content analysis in NVivo. Results indicate that the process of developing HBVs is dominated by agricultural research institutions with limited involvement of other actors such as farmers, private sector and extension staff. Further, there is limited integration of social aspects including gender in the banana technology development process. The study, therefore, recommends use of inclusive participatory approaches in breeding of HBVs while paying attention to gender-specific preferences and the intrinsic quality attributes such as food colour, texture, flavour and taste since these are critical drivers for uptake of the new banana varieties.
... On note que la variabilité des postures des chercheurs n'est pas corrélée à un type d'innovation (technique, sociale organisationnelle ou de service), ni corrélée à l'étape du processus d'innovation, contrairement à ce que supposent Douthwaite et Gummert (2010). Il apparaît plutôt des changements de postures en fonction des enjeux de RCI que les chercheurs rencontrent dans un contexte donné pour atteindre les objectifs visés, selon les opportunités d'activités données par les projets de R&D et les compétences disponibles sur place. ...
Capacity development for innovation is emerging as a new way to ensure sustainable development in developing countries. In the agricultural sector, innovation is essentially collective, which calls on researchers to step out of their role as producers of knowledge in order to engage with innovating actors. While a diversity of engaged research practices has emerged, there is not yet a clear understanding of the different ways in which researchers contribute to innovation. The aim of this paper is to identify the types of contribution of researchers to capacity-development for innovation. To this end, the authors have developed an ex post analytical framework that puts into perspective two corpus of literature: on learning and management of innovation. This framework makes it possible to characterize sequences of learning situations and a variety of postures of researchers at different stages of innovation in order to account for their contributions. Based on an in-depth study of thirteen innovation cases in which the French Agricultural Centre for International Development (CIRAD) was engaged with its Southern research partners, four types of contribution of researchers to capacity development to innovate have been identified: to facilitate learning in an unsupervised way; to plan and manage learning processes; to create and respond to learning needs step by step; to be guided by the exploration and needs of end-users. Our results suggest that strategic management of innovation processes by research organizations could be made possible by the monitoring and evaluation of learning situations, on the one hand to strengthen researchers' capacity to innovate, and on the other hand, to better coordinate the skills and resources available, to change the mandates of researchers and to rationalize their investments.
... We take as given that, even in complex systems, change happens through relatively stable patterns of activities that emerge and die away over time. These patterns have been called technology trajectories (Ekboir, 2003), innovation trajectories (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010) outcome trajectories (Paz-Ybarnegaray and Douthwaite, 2016) and beneficial coherence within attractors (Snowden, 2010). An empirically-based ToC should give a sense of recurring patterns of behavior that programs may have catalyzed or contributed to catalyzing, along with other factors. ...
Agricultural innovation systems (AIS) are increasingly recognized as complex adaptive systems in which interventions cannot be expected to create predictable, linear impacts. Nevertheless, the logic models and theory of change (ToC) used by standard-setting international agricultural research agencies and donors assume that agricultural research will create impact through a predictable linear adoption pathway which largely ignores the complexity dynamics of AIS, and which misses important alternate pathways through which agricultural research can improve system performance and generate sustainable development impact. Despite a growing body of literature calling for more dynamic, flexible and “complexity-aware” approaches to monitoring and evaluation, few concrete examples exist of ToC that takes complexity dynamics within AIS into account, or provide guidance on how such theories could be developed. This paper addresses this gap by presenting an example of how an empirically-grounded, complexity-aware ToC can be developed and what such a model might look like in the context of a particular type of program intervention. Two detailed case studies are presented from an agricultural research program which was explicitly seeking to work in a “complexity-aware” way within aquatic agricultural systems in Zambia and the Philippines. Through an analysis of the outcomes of these interventions, the pathways through which they began to produce impacts, and the causal factors at play, we derive a “complexity-aware” ToC to model how the cases worked. This middle-range model, as well as an overarching model that we derive from it, offer an alternate narrative of how development change can be produced in agricultural systems, one which aligns with insights from complexity science and which, we argue, more closely represents the ways in which many research for development interventions work in practice. The nested ToC offers a starting point for asking a different set of evaluation and research questions which may be more relevant to participatory research efforts working from within a complexity-aware, agricultural innovation systems perspective.
... To enact the co-innovation approach, strong emphasis was placed on reflection on how to shape activities to enhance mutual learning within and among the groups of farmers, researchers and advisers involved. During the first half of the project, the focus was on introducing practical tools and skills that could support the CAS approach to innovation (following Douthwaite et al., 2002;Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010). During two multi-day workshops, tools were introduced from the Reflexive Monitoring in Action toolkit (van Mierlo et al., 2010), including system analysis, dynamic learning agenda, actor analysis plus causal analysis, and audiovisual learning history. ...
Stakeholder involvement in research processes is widely seen as essential to enhance the applicability of research. A common conclusion in the extensive body of literature on participatory and transdisciplinary research is the importance of the institutional context for understanding the dynamics and effectiveness of participatory projects. The role of institutional context has become increasingly important in view of large international research projects implementing shared participatory methodologies across countries (for example within Horizon 2020 and within CGIAR programmes), which each have different institutional contexts. Despite the generally accepted importance of the institutional context for understanding the unfolding of participatory and transdisciplinary research projects, surprisingly little research has actually looked into its role in greater detail. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by studying how a set of participatory principles and methods in a European project on integrated pest management (denoted as co-innovation in the project under study) was applied by researchers and advisers operating in a single international research project under the institutional conditions of four countries. The principal finding of this study is that, although constraints and enablers of participatory research at the personal level (e.g. researcher identity) were similar across the studied countries, research organisation-and community-based constraints and enablers differed, as well as those at the level of the overall innovation system. The institutions at different levels interact and create country-specific histories and path-dependencies, which lead to different degrees of propensity and preparedness, and hence different starting positions for participatory approaches. Consequently, when participatory research methods and approaches are applied in different contexts following a one-size-fits-all approach they may be less effective if not translated to institutional conditions at different levels. The study suggests that large international participatory research projects make provision in their design for careful selection of project team individuals, the composition of teams, and pay attention to the room for manoeuvre that the project, institute and national contexts provide for participatory research. To support the adjustment of participa-tory approaches to local institutional conditions, large international projects would benefit from fostering learning spaces that enable reflection on translation to local contexts and are capable of connecting to a wider network of decision makers and influencers that can facilitate institutional change in organisations and innovation systems.
... Technology in this process is socially embedded, implying that all stakeholders have an interest in the technology or the process enabled by the technology. In the case of rice post-harvest technology, this means that "the farmer, the miller and the people in their social networks have their own learning cycles; with these, they create conditions for the recombination of differing observations and experiences that can lead to further adaptation" (Douthwaite and Gummert, 2010). The social networks in an LA are broadly defined. ...
Network formation, learning and innovation in multi-stakeholder research projects Experiences with Adaptive Research and Learning Alliances in rice farming communities in Southeast Asia Rica Joy Flor Abstract Mounting pressure on research organizations to achieve sustainable development outcomes from research has pushed them to use multi-stakeholder approaches. Insights are missing however, on how these influence social, technical, and institutional change, as well as what outcomes emerge from these. The thesis is an examination of the enactment of multi-stakeholder approaches, questioning how and to what extent Adaptive Research (AR) and Learning Alliance (LA) approaches influence socio-technical innovation in rice farming communities. Four case studies of research and development projects that employed the approaches in rice farming communities were elaborated in this thesis. AR implementation in Indonesia (chapter 2), showed how AR fast-tracked technical adaptations and built upon the improvisational capacities of farmers. AR monitoring however, rendered invisible the adaptations required on the social aspect. Simultaneous social, technical, and institutional redesign was limited. A case of LA implemented at national level engaged a network that changed and expanded after three years to include diverse actors (chapter 3). There were points where implementation (mis)aligned with assumptions from project implementers and from conceptual literature of the LA approach. The network influenced change at community level by engaging small groups that made reconfigurations on the technologies and the social arrangements for these (chapter 4). A community-level LA in Myanmar was also found to stimulate a self-organized learning process towards innovation for flatbed dryer technology (chapter 5). A case where a project used AR only versus AR with LA in Myanmar (chapter 6), revealed differing networks, learning processes, and outcomes in terms of learning agenda. The involvement of a wider network resulted in a broader set of activities, which were initiatives outside the original plans of the project. The learning activities were not only about technologies but also included experimentations on supportive environment for access and use of the technologies. This thesis therefore demonstrates that project actors implement AR and LA approaches through a range of translations in multiple contexts. These imply varied interactions in different types of networks. Such interactions triggered varied learning processes and thus influenced different planned or emergent outcomes. Both approaches have potential to catalyze innovation in farming communities; however, outcomes on adoption numbers provide a caveat that these approaches are not silver bullets that guarantee technology adoption. Instead, implementation that facilitates effective learning processes, and monitoring that flags where projects could support emergent outcomes, can help implementers improve their contributions to development in farming communities.
... One way that has been shown to improve adoption of technologies is the involvement of farmers throughout the developmental process, from the initial inclusion and testing of treatments through to experimentation by farmers themselves [3]. It is important also that researchers remain involved with the same network of partners [4]. ...
The Mother Baby Trial (MBT) approach is an on-farm participatory mechanism to introduce and test technology options suited to a heterogeneous community. In this study, the MBT concept was followed with integrated nutrient management (INM) technology in a soybean-wheat system. Seven treatments were tested in Mother trials in 2005-06 and 2006-07 on farmers' fields in the Rajgarh and Bhopal districts of Central India. In 2007-08, 100 Baby trials were conducted by farmers in 10 surrounding villages to demonstrate and test the INM technology. The Baby trials were based on the results of Mother trials which showed that INM using 50% of the recommended NPKS fertilizer+5 t FYM/ha+Rhizobium to soybean and 75% of the recommended NPKS fertilizer+P-solubilizing bacteria to wheat produced higher soybean yield by 46% and higher wheat yield by 24% over the farmers' practice. In the Baby trials, there was a wide variation in soybean yield obtained with INM, balanced fertilization (BF) using inorganic fertilizers, and farmers' practice; in poorer yielding trials, some problems were evident in the control of weeds and insect pests. Wheat responded well to BF and INM in trials irrigated 3-4 times. The MBT approach proved valuable in demonstrating higher productivity of the soybean-wheat system, and the value of INM and BF technologies, but only with proper weed and pest management in soybean, and adequate irrigation in wheat, as a package of practices.
... The core ingredients are promising technologies, motivated growers and scientists, and/or technicians or advisors who support growers to select, produce, or adopt tailor-made solutions and evaluate them. A case study on postharvest equipment in Asia shows that lower adoption rates of the new technologies were achieved in regions where the embedded scientific or technical personnel were missing (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). A reconsideration of the traditional division of roles and responsibilities within the framework of co-innovation could allow advance practical solutions. ...
Whether modern agriculture without conventional pesticides will be possible or not is a matter of debate. The debate is meaningful within the context of rising health and environmental awareness on one hand, and the global challenge of feeding a steadily growing human population on the other. Conventional pesticide use has come under pressure in many countries, and some European Union (EU) Member States have adopted policies for risk reduction following Directive 2009/128/EC, the sustainable use of pesticides. Highly diverse crop production systems across Europe, having varied geographic and climatic conditions, increase the complexity of European crop protection. The economic competitiveness of European agriculture is challenged by the current legislation, which banned the use of many previously authorized pesticides that are still available and applied in other parts of the world. This challenge could place EU agricultural production at a disadvantage, so EU farmers are seeking help from the research community to foster and support Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Ensuring a stable crop yields and quality while reducing the reliance on pesticides is a challenge facing the farming community is today. Considering this, we focus on several diverse situations in European agriculture in general and in European crop protection in particular. We emphasize that the marked biophysical and socio-economic differences across Europe have led to a situation where a meaningful reduction in pesticide use can hardly be achieved. Nevertheless, improvements and/or adoption of the knowledge and technologies of IPM can still achieve large gains in pesticide reduction. In this overview, the current pest problems and their integrated management are discussed in the context of specific geographic regions of Europe, with a particular emphasis on reduced pesticide use. We conclude that there are opportunities for reduction in many parts of Europe without significant losses in crop yields.
... One way that has been shown to improve adoption of technologies is the involvement of farmers throughout the developmental process, from the initial inclusion and testing of treatments through to experimentation by farmers themselves [3]. It is important also that researchers remain involved with the same network of partners [4]. ...
Research findings are often not adopted by farmers, for which many reasons have been suggested including poor communication between researchers and farmers. Mother–baby trials, involving on-farm participation to introduce and test technology options, was used to evaluate possible nutrient management technologies in a soybean–wheat system on vertisols deficient in N, P, S and Zn in Madhya Pradesh, India. Seven treatments were tested in four mother trials in 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 on farmers’ fields of soybean (monsoon season) and wheat (rabi season) in the Rajgarh and Bhopal districts. In soybean, balanced fertilization (BF) with recommended rates (kg ha−1) of 25 N, 26 P, 17 K, 20 S, and 5 Zn and Integrated Nutrient Management (INM2) (50 % of the recommended inorganic fertilizer + 5 t farmyard manure ha−1 + seed inoculation with Rhizobium) increased seed yield by ca. 26 % over the farmers’ practice (FP). In wheat, BF (120 N, 26 P, 17 K, and 20 S kg ha−1) and INM2 (75 % of the recommended inorganic fertilizer + P-solubilizing bacteria) increased grain yield by ca. 17 % over the FP treatment. Two sets of >90 baby trials conducted by farmers in 2007–2008 and 2009–2010 in 10 villages showed the benefits of these two promising technologies. In poor-yielding fields of soybean (seed yield −1), there was no benefit of applying fertilizers. In contrast, INM2 increased grain yield by 48 % over the FP treatments in fields with fewer limitations. In 2007–2008, wheat responded well to INM2 in fields irrigated three to four times but not in those where irrigation was limited. Field days conducted in 2007–2008 helped the farmers understand the importance of timely control of weeds and insect pests in soybean, and almost all 98 farmers produced higher soybean seed yield over the FP with BF and INM2 during 2009–2010. In this season with timely winter rainfall, almost all farmers at all levels of wheat production obtained good responses to BF and INM2 of 44 and 28 %. The involvement of farmers from the outset proved valuable in the adoption of improved nutrient management technologies for higher productivity of the soybean–wheat system, and farmers became aware that higher yields through better nutrient managements are achieved with proper weed and insect pest management in soybean and adequate irrigation in wheat.
... The added value of multi-stakeholder collaboration in problem solving is increasingly well recognized (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). As such, developing sustainable agricultural systems requires changing research methodologies in terms of how scientists and technologists articulate with end-users of technology (Defoer 2002). ...
Purpose: Changing research design and methodologies regarding how researchers articulate with end-users of technology is an important consideration in developing sustainable agricultural practices. This paper analyzes a joint experiment as a multi-stakeholder process and contributes to understand how the way of organizing social learning affects stakeholders’ ownership of process outcomes. Design/Methodology/Approach:A learning group composed of the different stakeholders of the oil palm seed system in Benin was set around a joint experiment. We use a detailed account of the group dynamics to understand the social process. Findings: The way the process is designed and conducted has a great effect on the ownership by the participants. Methodological steps taken in this research process showed its efficacy to produce quick and positive feedback mechanisms. Stakeholders’ perspectives on what constitutes a quality oil palm seedling varied widely. Participants, mainly nursery holders, learned new production practices. Representatives of the research center learned a mismatch of recommendations with users’ contexts. Field observations further to the process indicate changes in practices among stakeholders that would be sustainable. Practical Implications: Beyond focusing on outcomes, initiatives in multi-stakeholder processes should also document and analyze social processes in order to better understand the mechanisms by which such processes foster socio-technical change, as well as identify potential institutional barriers to such processes. Originality/Value: Through a detailed analysis of group dynamics, this paper addresses an important knowledge gap in participatory agricultural development.
... The availability of business support services in the form of credit/ financing, business plans and marketing assistance to end-users along with facilitating linkages between chain actors for more robust and sustainable business models. Douthwaite and Gummert (2010) suggest that there is a need for agricultural researchers to stay engaged with fabricators/ manufacturers to support local end-users in a process of local adaptation, rather than treating R&D products as finished public goods for stakeholders to simply pick up. Support for field demos with business cases for technology adoption. ...
... When asked what one would need to adopt one of these water quality practices, 'monetary incentives' and 'educational programmes' were the two most frequently selected options (each checked by 44% of the combined population; data not shown). This related well with the perceived barrier of installation/equipment costs and a desire for more information shown in Figure 3. Educational programming should focus on providing increased access to information via more personalized, local approaches by long-term partners (Douthwaite andGummert 2010, Lemke et al. 2010). The other two survey options for this question, 'field days to showcase conservation equipment' and 'peer-to-peer mentoring', were selected by 31% and 30% of respondents, respectively. ...
Nitrate pollution from agricultural drainage has caused water quality concerns worldwide, but there are several promising technologies to help mitigate this environmental degradation. While these practices primarily aim to improve water quality, they may also provide other ‘additive’ benefits or ecosystem services and the awareness of such benefits may influence their potential to be adopted by farmers. To investigate the impact that perceived ecosystem services has on a practice's adoption potential, we used a mixed methods approach consisting of a literature review, producer surveys, and a group discussion to explore farmer interest in and perceived benefits (on-farm and regional) of seven subsurface drainage nitrate reduction practices (controlled drainage, bioreactors, wetlands, nitrogen management rate, nitrogen management timing, cover crops, and diversified crop rotations). The nitrogen management practices were shown to be accessible and realistic options for water quality improvement as they elicited high interest and had the highest level of compatibility. However, these practices did not provide many other complementary ecosystem services. Conversely, wetlands had a high literature review-derived ecosystem service count, but were considered to have low compatibility, and survey respondents indicated less interest in this practice. The practice of cover cropping showed more moderate, yet consistently positive results for all factors.
... The added value of multi-stakeholder collaboration in problem solving is increasingly well recognized (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). As such, developing sustainable agricultural systems requires changing research methodologies in terms of how scientists and technologists articulate with end-users of technology (Defoer 2002). ...
Changing research design and methodologies regarding how researchers articulate with end-users of technology is an important consideration in developing sustainable agricultural practices. This paper analyzes a joint experiment as a multi-stakeholder process and contributes to understand how the way of organizing social learning affects stakeholders’ ownership of process outcomes. Design/Methodology/Approach:A learning group composed of the different stakeholders of the oil palm seed system in Benin was set around a joint experiment. We use a detailed account of the group dynamics to understand the social process. Findings: The way the process is designed and conducted has a great effect on the ownership by the participants. Methodological steps taken in this research process showed its efficacy to produce quick and positive feedback mechanisms. Stakeholders’ perspectives on what constitutes a quality oil palm seedling varied widely. Participants, mainly nursery holders, learned new production practices. Representatives of the research center learned a mismatch of recommendations with users’ contexts. Field observations further to the process indicate changes in practices among stakeholders that would be sustainable. Practical Implications: Beyond focusing on outcomes, initiatives in multi-stakeholder processes should also document and analyze social processes in order to better understand the mechanisms by which such processes foster socio-technical change, as well as identify potential institutional barriers to such processes. Originality/Value: Through a detailed analysis of group dynamics, this paper addresses an important knowledge gap in participatory agricultural development.
... Consequently, science faces demand for a greater variety of technologies than it can feasibly develop. One suggestion to resolve this dilemma has been to release unfinished technologies, which can be adapted to specific contexts by potential users (Douthwaite and Gummert 2010). Others point to the organization of the research process itself to explain the difficulties. ...
Purpose: The article reports effects on livelihoods of a participatory technology development effort in Benin and Ghana (2001–2006), five years after it ended.Design: The study uses data from all smallholders who participated in seven experimental groups, each facilitated by a PhD researcher. Baseline data and controls were not available. In their dissertations the researchers had each made claims about the impact of their work on the livelihoods of those involved. These claims guided the study in each group, and referred to both impacts based on the superiority of the technology developed, and increased knowledge or capacity that participants claimed to have gained. Two local social scientists interviewed 187 farmers.Findings: The study found considerable evidence of continued beneficial use of technologies developed with farmers. The most important reason for no longer using a technology or institutional innovation was that smallholders had not been able to sustain the conditions for use. Lasting non-technological effects included more mutual understanding among community members, emancipation vis-à-vis researchers and colleagues, and an experimental attitude and research skills. Such effects were recorded for nearly all groups.Practical implications: Smallholders face small windows of opportunity. Technologies and institutional changes that depend on artificially created conditions are likely to be discontinued once those conditions are withdrawn (for example, access to Neem seeds or agreements about land use between landlords and tenants). The findings draw attention to the conditions that enable smallholders to innovate.Originality/value: The study represents a rare attempt to study impact five years later and compares seven independent cases.
... PPB projects, for example, are focused at least in part on generating new varieties of crops, a material output that is evaluated within the framework of conventional scientific inquiry. In contrast, Douthwaite and Gummert (2010) describe how some research for development, particularly when focused on adapting technologies to specific agricultural production settings, emphasizes the innovation process rather than the generation of a specific technology or technique as the end goal. Recent schemas for evaluating degrees of participation in projects incorporate this awareness of the epistemological differences that can arise in projects that involve some level of scientific expertise (Kleinman, 2000;Sperling et al., 2001). ...
Mes recherches actuelles portent sur l’analyse de la performance économique des secteurs horticoles aux Antilles, en Afrique subsaharienne et dans l’Océan Indien ; ainsi que sur l’apport des sciences comportementales et cognitives en économie. Cela m’a conduit à ce que je nomme l’Approche par l’Alliance. Mes travaux sur les innovations agro-écologiques, ainsi que l’apport des sciences comportementales et cognitives en médecine, ont infléchi le regard que je porte sur l’agent économique ; c’est-à-dire, la personne, son ménage, l’entreprise, et le gouvernement. En effet, la science économique n’est pas qu’une question de logistique, de profit, ou encore de manipulation du choix des personnes. Sa finalité consiste à améliorer leurs conditions de vie ainsi que leurs capabilités. Une éthique du développement centrée sur la personne peut contribuer aux réflexions sur les finalités et les moyens de la science économique. L’Approche par l’Alliance s’appuie sur la pratique médicale de l’alliance thérapeutique (qualifiée aussi d’alliance professionnelle). C’est une démarche professionnelle centrée sur les besoins de la personne. Elle s’appuie sur des compétences techniques et la reconnaissance des statuts des personnes. Elle se base sur quatre principes: le professionnalisme, l’empathie, l’authenticité et la chaleur humaine. L’application de ces quatre principes réconcilie et renouvelle mon regard sur la science économique, les actions sur le terrain, et l’éthique du développement. Son application en économie ouvre des perspectives de recherche théoriques et opérationnelles prometteuses. Car si elle est avant tout une pratique, l’Approche par l’Alliance peut aussi devenir une théorie et une éthique pour un développement durable.
Mes recherches actuelles portent sur l’analyse de la performance économique des secteurs horticoles aux Antilles, en Afrique subsaharienne et dans l’Océan Indien ; ainsi que sur l’apport des sciences comportementales et cognitives en économie. Cela m’a conduit à ce que je nomme l’Approche par l’Alliance. Mes travaux sur les innovations agro-écologiques, ainsi que l’apport des sciences comportementales et cognitives en médecine, ont infléchi le regard que je porte sur l’agent économique ; c’est-à-dire, la personne, son ménage, l’entreprise, et le gouvernement. En effet, la science économique n’est pas qu’une question de logistique, de profit, ou encore de manipulation du choix des personnes. Sa finalité consiste à améliorer leurs conditions de vie ainsi que leurs capabilités. Une éthique du développement centrée sur la personne peut contribuer aux réflexions sur les finalités et les moyens de la science économique. L’Approche par l’Alliance s’appuie sur la pratique médicale de l’alliance thérapeutique (qualifiée aussi d’alliance professionnelle). C’est une démarche professionnelle centrée sur les besoins de la personne. Elle s’appuie sur des compétences techniques et la reconnaissance des statuts des personnes. Elle se base sur quatre principes: le professionnalisme, l’empathie, l’authenticité et la chaleur humaine. L’application de ces quatre principes réconcilie et renouvelle mon regard sur la science économique, les actions sur le terrain, et l’éthique du développement. Son application en économie ouvre des perspectives de recherche théoriques et opérationnelles prometteuses. Car si elle est avant tout une pratique, l’Approche par l’Alliance peut aussi devenir une théorie et une éthique pour un développement durable.
Ce guide méthodologique propose une démarche élaborée au Cirad pour évaluer l’impact de la recherche sur le développement.
Problems in agriculture and land use are increasingly recognised as complex, uncertain, operating at multiple levels (field to global value chains) and involving social, economic, institutional, and technological change. This has implications for how projects navigate complexity to achieve impact. However, few studies have systematically evaluated how project actors engage with other actors to configure capabilities and resources across multiple levels in agricultural innovation systems (AIS), from the individual to the network, to mobilise and build systemic innovation capacity. An analytical framework conceptualising the nested configuration of capabilities at multiple levels in the AIS is applied to two projects that successfully tackled agricultural and land management problems of differing complexity: (i) improving lamb survival; and (ii) sustainable land management in New Zealand. Findings indicate that innovation capacity constitutes project actors interacting with other AIS actors to configure capabilities and resources at different levels of the AIS in order to leverage positive project path dependencies and break path dependencies that are created by existing and historical capability configurations. Project actors also balance exploiting existing innovation capabilities, as well as using adaptive capability for exploring and creating new capability configurations to respond to emerging circumstances. This implies that projects should have strategic ambidexterity in terms of how they combine exploiting existing and exploring new networks to access, combine, create, or disconnect certain capabilities to address ‘capability voids’ in AIS. This requires support to projects to constantly scrutinise, through reflexive monitoring by dedicated facilitators, specific agriculture and land use policies connected to major sustainable development models (e.g. climate smart agriculture, urban farming, smart farming). The can help assess whether the AIS provides the right mix of capabilities and whether this is adequately supported by innovation policy, to realize transformative policy objectives.
New Rice for Africa (NERICA) was developed by the Africa Rice Center by crossing high-yielding Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.) with locally adapted African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.). Community-based seed production of NERICA varieties was introduced in a village in central Benin in 2006 through seed dissemination projects. It was reported that high-adoption rates of these varieties were mainly due to high demand by development projects for seed dissemination, and to incentives (i.e. selling the rice seed at a higher than local market price to a local extension service) for farmers to grow NERICA varieties. A follow-up survey was undertaken after the seed dissemination projects ended to examine the change in the cultivation of NERICA varieties. About half of the farmers had ceased cultivation of NERICA varieties in 2011. The reasons for abandonment were the combined effects of reduced seed demand and low yields, which were attributed to a lack of access to credit and training on NERICA cultivation practices. The majority of the farmers did not abandon rice cultivation, but grew other high-yielding varieties, including one aromatic variety for which there was market demand. We conclude that to avoid immediate reductions in the adoption of new varieties after projects are terminated and to enhance agricultural sustainability, the varieties should be introduced in conjunction with appropriate group training on their cultivation, and the project should target farmers who do not have off-farm businesses. Furthermore, access to credit should also be enhanced, and the marketability of the varieties should be assessed.
Problems in agriculture and land use are increasingly recognised as complex, uncertain, operating at multiple levels (field to global value chains) and involving social, economic, institutional, and technological change. This has implications for how projects navigate complexity to achieve impact. However, few studies have systematically evaluated how project actors engage with other actors to configure capabilities and resources across multiple levels in agricultural innovation systems (AIS), from the individual to the network, to mobilise and build systemic innovation capacity. An analytical framework conceptualising the nested configuration of capabilities at multiple levels in the AIS is applied to two projects that successfully tackled agricultural and land management problems of differing complexity: (i) improving lamb survival; and (ii) sustainable land management in New Zealand. Findings indicate that innovation capacity constitutes project actors interacting with other AIS actors to configure capabilities and resources at different levels of the AIS in order to leverage positive project path dependencies and break path dependencies that are created by existing and historical capability configurations. Project actors also balance exploiting existing innovation capabilities, as well as using adaptive capability for exploring and creating new capability configurations to respond to emerging circumstances. This implies that projects should have strategic ambidexterity in terms of how they combine exploiting existing and exploring new networks to access, combine, create, or disconnect certain capabilities to address ‘capability voids’ in AIS. This requires support to projects to constantly scrutinise, through reflexive monitoring by dedicated facilitators, specific agriculture and land use policies connected to major sustainable development models (e.g. climate smart agriculture, urban farming, smart farming). The can help assess whether the AIS provides the right mix of capabilities and whether this is adequately supported by innovation policy, to realize transformative policy objectives.
Research findings are often not adopted by
farmers, for which many reasons have been suggested
including poor communication between researchers and
farmers. Mother–baby trials, involving on-farm participation
to introduce and test technology options, was used to
evaluate possible nutrient management technologies in a
soybean–wheat system on vertisols deficient in N, P, S and
Zn in Madhya Pradesh, India. Seven treatments were tested
in four mother trials in 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 on
farmers’ fields of soybean (monsoon season) and wheat
(rabi season) in the Rajgarh and Bhopal districts. In soybean,
balanced fertilization (BF) with recommended rates
(kg ha-1) of 25 N, 26 P, 17 K, 20 S, and 5 Zn and Integrated
Nutrient Management (INM2) (50 % of the recommended
inorganic fertilizer ? 5 t farmyard manure
ha-1 ? seed inoculation with Rhizobium) increased seed
yield by ca. 26 % over the farmers’ practice (FP). In wheat,
BF (120 N, 26 P, 17 K, and 20 S kg ha-1) and INM2 (75 %
of the recommended inorganic fertilizer ? P-solubilizing
bacteria) increased grain yield by ca. 17 % over the FP
treatment. Two sets of [90 baby trials conducted by
farmers in 2007–2008 and 2009–2010 in 10 villages
showed the benefits of these two promising technologies.
In poor-yielding fields of soybean (seed yield\1 t ha-1),
there was no benefit of applying fertilizers. In contrast,
INM2 increased grain yield by 48 % over the FP treatments
in fields with fewer limitations. In 2007–2008, wheat
responded well to INM2 in fields irrigated three to four
times but not in those where irrigation was limited. Field
days conducted in 2007–2008 helped the farmers understand
the importance of timely control of weeds and insect
pests in soybean, and almost all 98 farmers produced
higher soybean seed yield over the FP with BF and INM2
during 2009–2010. In this season with timely winter rainfall,
almost all farmers at all levels of wheat production
obtained good responses to BF and INM2 of 44 and 28 %.
The involvement of farmers from the outset provedvaluable in the adoption of improved nutrient management
technologies for higher productivity of the soybean–wheat
system, and farmers became aware that higher yields
through better nutrient managements are achieved with
proper weed and insect pest management in soybean and
adequate irrigation in wheat.
Réintégrer les cultures et l'élevage dans des systèmes mixtes est un enjeu fort de l'écologisation de l'agriculture. Pour appuyer la conception de tels systèmes à l'échelle exploitation et territoire, nous proposons un modèle conceptuel d'intégration selon deux approches : les flux de matières en vue d'améliorer l'efficience des ressources, les services écosystémiques en vue de substituer les intrants chimiques. Ce modèle, basé sur les interactions entre les sphères prairies - cultures - animaux, s'adapte aux systèmes actuels et à la conception de systèmes innovants, et permet d'imaginer les coordinations entre acteurs nécessaires à la mise en oeuvre de l'intégration agroécologique. Ces coordinations génèrent des services d'ordre socio-économiques qui peuvent être recherchés et optimisés. L'articulation de ces cadres dans une méthode de conception participative et les outils associés nous semblent prometteurs pour appuyer l'intégration culture-élevage.
The Challenge Program on Water and Food pursues food security and poverty alleviation through the efforts of some 50 researchfor-development projects. These involve almost 200 organizations working in nine river basins around the world. An approach was developed to enhance the developmental impact of the program through better impact assessment, to provide a framework for monitoring and evaluation, to permit stakeholders to derive strategic and programmatic lessons for future initiatives, and toprovide information that can be used to inform public awareness efforts. The approach makes explicit a project's program theory by describing its impact pathways in terms of a logic model and network maps. A narrative combines the logic model and the network maps into a single explanatory account and adds to overall plausibility by explaining the steps in the logic model and the key risks and assumptions. Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis is based on concepts related to program theory drawn from the fields of evaluation, organizational learning, and social network analysis.
Enabling Innovation is an engrossing look at some of the disaster—and success—stories surrounding technological development and diffusion in industrialized and developing countries. The book tells the story of widely divergent technologies—agricultural appliances, wind turbines, Green Revolution high yielding seeds, the Linux computer operating system, and Local Economic Trading Systems. Boru Douthwaite has constructed a "how to do it" guide to innovation management that runs counter to so many current "top-down", "big is good", and "private sector is best" assumptions
The need for an integrated social constructivist approach towards the study of science and technology is outlined. Within such a programme both scientific facts and technological artefacts are to be understood as social constructs. Literature on the sociology of science, the science-technology relationship, and technology studies is reviewed. The empirical programme of relativism within the sociology of scientific knowledge and a recent study of the social construction of technological artefacts are combined to produce the new approach. The concepts of `interpretative flexibility' and `closure mechanism', and the notion of `social group' are developed and illustrated by reference to a study of solar physics and a study of the development of the bicycle. The paper concludes by setting out some of the terrain to be explored in future studies.
The CGIAR System conducts research to produce international public goods (IPG) that are of wide applicability, creating a scientific base which speeds and broadens local adaptive development. Integrated natural resources management (INRM) research is sometimes seen to be very location specific and consequently does not lend itself readily to the production of IPGs. In this paper we analyse ways in which strategic approaches to INRM research can have broad international applicability and serve as useful foundations for the development of locally adapted technologies. The paper describes the evolution of the IPG concept within the CGIAR and elaborates on five major types of IPGs that have been generated from a varied set of recent INRM research efforts. CGIAR networks have both strengths and weaknesses in INRM research and application, with enormous differences in relative research and development capacities, responsibilities and data access of its partners, making programme process evolution critical to acceptance and participation. Many of the lessons learnt regarding challenges and corresponding IPG research approaches are relevant to designing and managing future multi-scale, multi-locational, co-ordinated INRM programmes involving broad-based partnerships to address complex environmental and livelihood problems for development.
This paper develops a model of the early adoption process that takes into account modifications made by users. The model is based on data from 13 attempts to introduce six postharvest technologies into the Philippines and Vietnam. It is built on an analogy between technology change and Darwinian evolution. At the core of the model is the interactive experiential learning process — learning selection (LS) — that is analogous to natural selection in the living world. In learning selection stakeholders engage with a new technology, individually playing the evolutionary roles of novelty generation and selection, and in their interactions creating recombinations of ideas and experiences and the promulgation of beneficial novelties. Peoples' motivations to engage in learning selection, and its outcomes, are influenced by the interaction between their lifeworlds and their environments. The model has implications for management of agricultural technology change. It suggests the need for a nurturing of new technology during its early adaptation and adoption, until the point where the beneficiary stakeholders (manufacturers and users) are sufficiently numerous and have adequate knowledge to play the evolutionary roles themselves. The LS model, while developed with data from agro-mechanical technologies, could provide a theoretical underpinning for participatory technology development.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Reading, 1999.
Why are some nations more technically creative than others and why do some highly innovative societies eventually stagnate? In this provocative study of the value and meaning of technological advance, Joel Mokyr considers how past physical and social conditions have influenced the development and reception of new ideas, and shows how these trends can guide future industrial strategies at a time when more countries than ever before are competing for the rewards of technical ingenuity. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780195074772/toc.html
Providing a complete portal to the world of case study research, the Fourth Edition of Robert K. Yin's bestselling text Case Study Research offers comprehensive coverage of the design and use of the case study method as a valid research tool. This thoroughly revised text now covers more than 50 case studies (approximately 25% new), gives fresh attention to quantitative analyses, discusses more fully the use of mixed methods research designs, and includes new methodological insights. The book's coverage of case study research and how it is applied in practice gives readers access to exemplary case studies drawn from a wide variety of academic and applied fields.Key Features of the Fourth Edition Highlights each specific research feature through 44 boxed vignettes that feature previously published case studies Provides methodological insights to show the similarities between case studies and other social science methods Suggests a three-stage approach to help readers define the initial questions they will consider in their own case study research Covers new material on human subjects protection, the role of Institutional Review Boards, and the interplay between obtaining IRB approval and the final development of the case study protocol and conduct of a pilot case Includes an overall graphic of the entire case study research process at the beginning of the book, then highlights the steps in the process through graphics that appear at the outset of all the chapters that follow Offers in-text learning aids including 'tips' that pose key questions and answers at the beginning of each chapter, practical exercises, endnotes, and a new cross-referencing tableCase Study Research, Fourth Edition is ideal for courses in departments of Education, Business and Management, Nursing and Public Health, Public Administration, Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science.
During the last forty years, economics of innovation has emerged as a distinct area of enquiry at the crossing of the economics of growth, industrial organization, regional economics and the theory of the firm, becoming a well identified area of competence in economics specializing not only in the analysis of the effects of the introduction of new technologies, but also and mainly in understanding technological change as an endogenous process. As the result of the interpretation, elaboration and evolution of different fields of analysis in economie theory, innovation is viewed as a complex, path dependent process characterized by the interdependence and interaction of a variety of heterogeneous agents, able to learn and react creatively with subjective and procedural rationality.
Many impact studies relate changes in impact indicators to research investments. This is valid only if an implicit assumption is true: that the link between indicators and investments dominates all other relationships that influence the impact indicators. However, this is only true for minor improvements along stable technological paths. In most cases, other factors, such as policies and markets, influence adoption and, consequently, impact. The problem is compounded because impacts often appear after many years and usually cannot be measured. Since many factors influence adoption, research impacts should be analyzed as part of a complex adaptive system that depends on external forces (e.g., markets), the direct and indirect interactions among agents (e.g., researchers, input suppliers and farmers), and the technology's nature and evolution. The complexity framework has broad consequences for agricultural and research policies. Since impacts result from the actions of the whole network, they cannot generally be attributed to individual agents. In evaluating networks, the relevant parameters to study are the rules for generating, collecting and sharing information, financing procedures, intellectual property-rights regulations and availability of human and financial resources. For individual agents the relevant indicators are their patterns of participation in particular networks, benefits and costs of participation, evaluation criteria, financial arrangements and institutional cultures.
Open Boundaries Creating Business Innovation through Complexity
- H Sherman
- R Schultz
- Usa Ma
- D Tapscott
- A D Williams
Sherman, H., Schultz, R., 1998. Open Boundaries Creating Business Innovation through Complexity. Perseus Books, Reading, MA, USA. Tapscott, D., Williams, A.D., 2006. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Portfolio, USA. Von Hippel, E., 2005. Democratizing Innovation. MIT Press, USA. <http:// web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm> (accessed 10.06.08).
Taking Darwin seriously
- M Ruse
Ruse, M., 1986. Taking Darwin seriously. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
International Public Goods and the CGIAR Niche in the R for D Continuum: Operationalizing Concepts
- J Ryan
Ryan, J. (2006) International Public Goods and the CGIAR Niche in the R for D Continuum:
Operationalizing Concepts [online]. Available from:
http://www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/meetings/meeting/SC5/Item_13_IPGs_&_R-D_Continuum.pdf [accessed on 6th November].
Effective and Persuasive Case Studies
- L Sechrest
- M Stewart
- T R Stickle
- S Sidani
Sechrest, L., Stewart, M., Stickle, T.R., Sidani, S., 1996. Effective and Persuasive Case Studies. Jaguar Graphics, Tuscon.
Diffusion of Innovations, 5 th edn
- E M Rogers
Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations, 5
th edn, Free Press, New York.