Embedding Agricultural Research

in a System of Innovation

Andy Hall
LINK Coordinator, UNU-MERIT

Learning INnovation Knowledge

Policy-relevant Resources for Rural Innovation
 Main Messages
• The recognition of two theories about how to promote
innovation
• The first relies on transferring knowledge, technology and
information
• The second relies on a social process of interactive learning
• Both are important, but the dynamics of ‘new agriculture’
demand a more dynamic, interactive approach
• Suggests that research increasingly needs to be situated in a
boarder set of relationships within a system of innovation
• Implications for the way research organisations operate and
the ways capacities for innovation and impact can be built
• What do the critics say?

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Why are we interested in Innovation?
• Innovation: The process of creating and putting into
use combinations of knowledge from different sources
• Putting knowledge into use adds value to existing
resources and creates IMPACT
• Research creates knowledge and technology
• The process of innovation goes further and also includes
putting that knowledge into use
• But how can innovation be promoted?

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 Theories on how to promote Innovation
Linear Systems
Sources of ideas Centralised, scientific Multiple sources
research including research
Communication Research- Structured around
to-“extension”-to- action
farmer
Assumptions on Diffusion processes Interactive learning
how impact is organised by give rise to concerted
achieved extension/ the market action
Assumptions about Generic/ a- Specific/ contextual
the nature of contextual Knowledge only has
knowledge Knowledge is meaning in its domain
universally valid and of existence
can be transferred

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 Where do Systems Views of
Innovation come from?
• Stephen Biggs — Multiple sources of agricultural
innovation

• The Dutch School — Agricultural extension origins.

Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (AKIS),
Niels Roling. Also Paul Engel and others. Focus on
actors in the rural domain

• National Systems of Innovation — Innovation

networks. Freeman, Lundval and others. SPRU, UNU-
INTECH and many others

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 National Systems of Innovation
• Empirically-based — Observations of successful industrial
economies
•
• Innovation not related to levels of R&D investment, per se
•
• Success comes from patterns of organisation and ways of working
that support an interactive process of knowledge sharing and learning

• In practice — There are partnerships between public research and

private enterprise, creating both technological and institutional change

• A key feature of interactive learning processes is the ability of these

arrangements to adapt rapidly to changing market, policy and
technological conditions

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 Why are these Systems Views of Innovation
becoming important to Agricultural Research?

– Mandate articulated in impact terms:

• economic growth, poverty reduction and environment, and
the complexity of these impact domains
– The emergence of a new, post-Green Revolution
Agriculture
– New agriculture in situated in a global context that is
evolving very rapidly with many different players
– Requires rapid response and adaptation to this
complex and changing context

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 New Agriculture
• Sectors
– Livestock and aquaculture
– Flowers, horticulture, medicinal plants
– Agro-processing, bio-fuels, fibers, forest products

• Drivers
– Access to regional and global markets
– New technology
– Changing consumer preferences associated with rising incomes
and urbanisation
– Industrialisation of the food chain and the emergence of
international value chains

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 Features of the New, Post-Green
Revolution Agriculture
– Reaches the poor through non-food routes
– Many different players involved, particularly the private
sector
– Embedded in the global context of trade rules, consumer
demands and competition and as a result changes very
rapidly in unpredictable ways
– Innovation to cope with the global context requires
knowledge from many different branches of science as
well as management and empirical knowledge
– Requires unprecedented rates of innovation to cope with
the rapidly-evolving context
– But this needs continuous incremental innovation more
than revolutionary innovation

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 What is an innovation system?
• Definition: A system of innovation is all the actors and
their interactions involved in the production, use of
knowledge, and the institutional and policy context that
shapes the processes of interacting, knowledge-sharing
and learning

• It is a way of organising thinking on ways of promoting

innovation in complex, continuously-changing
environments with many actors and where
straightforward technology transfer approaches are
unlikely to work

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Basic Innovation Systems Principles
• Research as part of a wider process of innovation
• Innovation requires interaction and this is only productive if
it is supported by the right sort of relationships
• Interaction is not only important for problem-solving, but also
to identify and respond to new challenges and opportunities.
Interaction helps rapid response
• The process of interacting and innovating is shaped by the
context – the way organisations work, national and regional
characteristics and the policy environment
• It’s a social process. Participating in the creation and use of
knowledge gives lessons on how to do this better
• Learning causes the evolution of patterns of interaction and
ways of working.

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 Most Important Principle
• The capacity to innovate is a combination of:

– Skills
• Scientific, Entrepreneurial, Managerial and others
– Patterns of interaction
• Partnerships, alliances and networks
– Ways of working
• Routines, organisational culture, traditional practices
– Policies
• Clusters of supportive policies and the nature of the policy process
– Learning
• The ability to continuously learn how to use knowledge more
effectively at the organisational level, at the sector level and at the
national level

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 What does this mean for
Research Organisations?
1. Centrality of partnerships
2. Network development
3. Development of a stakeholder dialogue
4. *Setting and implementing priorities
5. *New agenda of systems of capacity development
6. *New Research
7. *New Roles
8. Explicit efforts to reassess roles
9. *New organisational culture and ILAC
10. *New skills and disciplinary mixes
*Elaborated further

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 4. Setting and Implementing Priorities
• Governance
– Situating research organisations in a broader set of relationships brings with it
an expectation of participation in initiatives to address the concerns of these
stakeholders
• Priority setting
– The network becomes an important mechanism for setting priorities and these
are likely to be dynamic and evolving and relate to specific stakeholder
domains
• Local vs. Central
– Potential tension exists between research systems, strategic priorities and
local stakeholders’ immediate, new or unexpected priorities
• New role of priorities
– Centrally-defined priorities start to resemble broad framework for action
• Implementation of priorities
– Requires the creation of broad-based consortia around these thematic
priorities and a continuous process of evaluating their relevance and the
effectiveness of processes in addressing them. Priorities and approaches in a
system of innovation are always contestable

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5. New Agenda of Systems Capacity Development
• Beyond knowledge inputs
– It is not just knowledge and technology inputs that are needed,
but also important are the processes necessary to make
knowledge available and to enable its use
• Systems strengthening
– Research organisations operating in a system of innovation
need to work in ways that contribute to strengthening these
processes and the wider system
• Nature of capacity
– New linkages, new institutions (i.e., new forms of behaviour,
routines, norms) as well as new enabling environments policy)
• Challenges
– Raises questions about when linear-like approaches are more
effective and when systems-like approaches are more
effective. And how to make decisions about the nature of the
capacities that have to be strengthened

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 6. New Research Agenda
• Investigating how to strengthen Innovation Systems Capacity in
appropriate ways needs to be part of the research task
• Not as a specialist social science or policy research endeavour,
but as core element of research in different technological sectors
seeking to bring about innovation and impact
• The main way of investigating this is through an action research
methodology whereby new capacities are developed
experimentally and lessons learnt
• This may involve doing developmental-like activities in order to
learn lessons on how to deploy science and other knowledge
more effectively
• These lessons are international public goods
• Will only produce IPGs if processes and capacities are
investigated rigorously

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 7. New Roles
• Research role will remain important, although this will have to
contribute to institutional change as well as technological change

• Knowledge brokers ensuring that reliable knowledge and

information is available to each other where it is needed

• Catalytic role stimulating networking where it is needed

• Network participants to access knowledge from others or to

ensure that knowledge produced is accessible by others

• Context-specific roles. These roles are determined by particular

contexts and fields of action and all are legitimate roles for
research organisations, contributing to developing the capacity of
the innovation system in which they are embedded

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8. New Organisational Culture and ILAC
• Elements of this culture include:
– Openness to partnership
– Consensus and dialogue
– A willingness to respect the views of stakeholders
– A willingness to participate in knowledge-sharing and
exchange
– A recognition that ways of working and institutional
arrangements are inherently experimental with the scope
for continuous improvement
– The recognition that innovation can involve technology
transfer
– Participatory development
– Interactive learning

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 8. ILAC (contd.)
• Institutional learning and change
– i.e., incrementally changing habits and practices to
better achieve a goal is an incremental process of
reflection and learning and is central to building the
capacity of organisations and the systems to innovate
– The process of helping evolves the way research
organisations work
– Implies new professional and project evaluation
criteria

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10. New Skills and Disciplinary Mixes
• Soft skills will be required to work in new ways
– Partnering skills
– Facilitation skills
– Reflection and learning skills
– Networking skills

• Scientists with research skills relating to

understanding innovation process and capacities

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 What the critics say
• Linear approach not that bad. It worked well in the
past and actually (!) research organisations don’t
work like that, anyway
• It’s nothing new. We are already doing that
• Innovation doesn’t sound much like research so
doesn’t distract us from our main work
• It’s expensive
• It doesn’t produce (international) public goods
• It’s about innovation and not development, so will it
reduce poverty?

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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.

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