next steps for strengthening agricultural innovation systems: a roadmap for investigators and...

Next Steps for Strengthening Agricultural

Innovation Systems

A Road Map for Investigators and Investors

Learning INnovation KnowledgePolicy-relevant Resources for Rural Innovation

Andy Hall

LINK-United Nations University - MERIT

Propositions and Gaps

• Agricultural growth will lead to poverty reduction• The innovation systems concept is a useful way

of thinking about how to mobilise knowledge that suits the contemporary agricultural development situation

• Requires new forms of capacity development at a systems level, but what is the road map to achieving this?


Why do need something different? The new context of Agricultural Development

• Multi-functionality of agricultural development• Interconnectedness of scales and rates of change• Knowledge use capacities as a way of responding to change and as

a new source of comparative advantage• New sources of knowledge, particularly the private sector• Rapidly advancing technological frontier presents new opportunities• Collective intelligence, both necessary and now possible• Requires a diverse, expanding and evolving repertoire of ways of

organising innovation to cope with an unpredictable set of challenges and opportunities


What does Innovation Capacity look like?

• Policy and institutional setting

R&D


Map, Model, Structure, Metaphor?

• Innovation systems is not a blueprint for a new way of organising innovation, but a metaphor for the diversity of context-specific and path-dependent approaches that can and need to exist

• The challenge is one of creating the policy and institutional conditions to allow the co-existence, emergence and evolution of different ways of organising innovation

• Survival depends not on how good you are but how well you can adapt


Investigators’ Road Map

• Part of the problem or part of the solution to the challenge of institutional and policy change?!


The Ambition-to-Action gap

• Investigators have been exploring agricultural innovation since?? Hybrid corn studies in the 1950s

• At a general level there is agreement on basic principles– Multiple sources of knowledge; interaction; context-specific;

power, policy and institutional settings– But not broadly reflected in the “mainstream”

• So why isn’t our collective knowledge on innovation driving the institutional and policy changes needed to expand our repertoire of innovation approaches


Fads, evolving approaches, or a history of false dichotomies

• Emergence of innovation systems ideas is part of a long history of debates by agricultural scientists and innovation theorists

• Transfer of technology, farming systems, participatory/FFL, now innovation systems

• Often presented as a series of dichotomies. In reality it was not a case of either/ or, but bits of both. Additive


Paradigm Transfer of Technology

Farming Systems Research

Farmer First / Farmer Participatory Research

Interactive Learning for Change/ Innovation Systems

Era From 60’s Starting in the 1970s and ’80s

Starting in the 1990s Work in progress

Organisation focus NARIs NARS NARS as part of AKIS NARS as part of AIS

Mental modelof activities

Supply through pipeline

Learn through survey Collaborate in research

Interact and learn for innovation

Farmers seen by scientists as

Progressive adopters, laggards

Objects of study and sources of info

Colleagues Key actors among many others

Farmers’ roles Learn, adopt, conform Provideinformation for scientists

Diagnose, experiment, test, adapt

Co-generate knowledge, processes and innovation

Scope Productivity Input-output relationships

Farm-based Beyond the farm gate

Core element Technology packages Modified packages to overcome constraints

Joint production of knowledge

Facilitated interactive innovation, learning and change

Driver Supply push from research

Scientists’ need to learn about farmers’ conditions and needs

Demand pull from farmers

Responsiveness to changing contexts

Source: Adapted from Hall et al 2007


Brands vs. Diversity

• Innovation brands, because of their diversity, have not able to develop a coalition to argue for institutional and policy change

• We need diversity, but branding polarises advocacy for institutional and policy change

• Used as a diversity metaphor AIS values all relevant and useful ways of organising innovation and helps drive policy and practice dialogues needed to expand our innovation repertoire


Innovation systems features/ domains[i]

Institutional features

1 2 3 4 5 Institutional features

Organising principle/ scope of task

Scientific research

Products/service development Innovation/ socio-economic change

Responsiveness to different agendas

Curiosity Market Poor people

Accountability for outcomes

Low High

Knowledge types used

Few/ codified Many, codified and tacit, including indigenous

Degree of integration of different knowledge types

Low High

Use of policy incentives

Low High

Defining processes

Linear, reductionism

Reflective/ learning evolutionary systems

Ability to cope with change

Low High

Scale Global National Local

Future directions for investigators

• Intellectual challenges are operational, not about further elaboration and intellectualisation of concepts

• Communication of concepts

• Diagnosis

• Design

• Learning and evaluation


Dealing with investigator road blocks

• End innovation branding battles– Once you accept the importance of diversity of innovation

experiences, this experience can be harvested/ collated/ shared and help drive changes in practice, policies and institutional settings and expand repertoire of innovation approaches. (see COP)

• End evaluation battles– Central to so many aspects of the shift in perspective– Different evaluation approaches may be relevant to different

types of innovation experiences — No one-size-fits-all – Need high-level agreement on expanded repertoire of evaluation

approaches. A new gold standard?


Investors’ Road Map

• New tricks with existing ideas


Should we still give so much emphasis to R&D?• Why invest in research?

– Generate knowledge at the frontier — existing knowledge not available– Adapt existing knowledge to new tasks and local contexts– Absorptive reasons: Participation in international knowledge networks/processing

assimilating

• 19/20th century industrial revolution growth model with innovation driven by the transition from craft to science-based innovation at the knowledge frontier

• Mental model – R&D% of GDP policy and large-scale investments in scientific capacity – infrastructure and human resources

• Late 20th/early 21th century innovation revolution growth model with innovation driven by the ability to mobilise knowledge for productive purposes

• Mental model – Leapfrogging, using global knowledge pool, scientific capacity for absorptive and adaptive purposes. Emphasis on learning-based capacity development and building networks


Where to intervene?

• It all depends……………….. On the innovation capacity in a specific location

• Systems diagnosis becomes much more important than biophysical and even socio-economic priorities


Only public sector R&D led innovation

Strong nodes, well linked around market and social welfare themes in national arena

Only private/ NGO led innovation

Strong nodes, well linked around market and social welfare themes in regional and global arena

LINKS

N

O

D

E

S

INSTITUTIONS & POLICIES


Pre-

planned phase

Foundation phase

Emergence phase

Pilot phase

Stagnation phase

Dynamic system of innovation phase

Nascent phase

Initiating interventions

Piloting interventions

Piloting and building on success interventions

Remedial, piloting and building on success interventions

Building on success interventions

Maintenance interventions

Market and other opportunities

Rapidly

changing threats and opportunities

Orchestrated trajectory Opportunity driven trajectory

A continuously evolving sub sector delivering economic growth in socially equitable and environmentally sustainable ways

How do we intervene?

• It all depends……………………………

• Tailor-made solutions

• Starting points to learn in locally-specific ways in order to enable innovation

• Follow usual innovation systems principles

• Menu of options


Some Generic Options. 11. Strengthening research HR and infrastructure/

new sciences

- but frontier/adaptive, absorptive balance

- but NBNS

2. Building a new generation of research, development and policy professionals with a systems outlook

– Curriculum changes; graduate, post-graduate and short courses; problem-based pedagogy


Some Generic Options. 23. Learning-oriented innovation capacity strengthening programmes piloting different arrangements for:

– Financing; public-private linkage; improving access to public/ private technology; university-business collaboration; innovation platforms; sector-coordinating bodies; policy working groups; sustainable innovation; participatory and local innovation; response to drought and diseases; recovery from civil disturbance

– Many examples: NAIP, SSA CP, COS, RIU

4. Mobilising global learning on innovation– A virtual innovation resources facility; a community of practice;

consultative capacity benchmarking exercises/ policy dialogues; thematic reviews and working groups


Some Generic Options. 35. Value chain initiatives

– Strengthening technical services nodes; funding international private sector to establish high value horticulture; regulatory compliance; investing in farmer and industry associations; sector ‘groupyness’

6. North-South win-win research collaboration: – climate change; food safety; value chain

7. South-South/ regional research and practice consortia, particularly to share

8. A CGIAI? (consultative group on agricultural innovation)


Don’t worry, be happy!• Times of change are worrying times• But, an innovation systems perspective values

everybody’s contribution rather than privileging only a limited number

• However, it requires a change in mindset from the highest to the lowest levels

• It may require us to question some of the sacred principles of our own paradigms and embrace diversity: e.g., evaluation approaches

• But this may well be a historic moment for a significant change in the way knowledge is used for development

• Gatekeepers of the “mainstream” need to carefully consider their responsibilities


LINK is a specialist network of regional innovation policy studies hubs established by the United Nations University-MERIT (UNU-MERIT)

and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to strengthen the interface between rural innovation studies,

policy and practice and to promote North-South and South-South learning on rural innovation.


next steps for strengthening agricultural innovation systems: a roadmap for investigators and...

Documents

rural innovation

interactive innovation

innovation capacity

innovation systems concept

diversity innovation

collective knowledge

policy changes

systems level