This paper sets out to explore the nature of new organisational and institutional vehicles for managing innovation in order to put research into use for social gain. It has reviewed four classes of such vehicles found in South Asia. The first two — contract farming and organised retailing — represent what is becoming commonly-accepted in policy circles: namely that the private corporate sector can play a more prominent role in agricultural development, particularly in arrangements that combine providing access to markets in combination with access to technology needed to service those markets. The second two classes of vehicles — hybrid enterprises and social venture capital — represent a new, albeit fluid in definition, class of initiatives and organisations that combine features referred to as bottom-of-the pyramid and below-the-radar innovation. For each of these classes of innovation management vehicles this review has mapped the diversity of emerging examples and discussed their relevance for putting research into use for social gain. The paper concludes by saying that it is these new and as yet poorly-understood modes of innovation that have the greatest potential to effect change, although developing ways of supporting them is going to require some creative public policy instruments.
Argentine agriculture has undergone significant transformations over the past three decades. After a long period of stagnant production and productivity, starting in the early 1970s, a number of independent but interconnected events fostered a new technological cycle that induced rapid...
This research project aims to build ACP capacity to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the local science, technology and innovation system in the agricultural sector. The results of the study should provide information on the nature of the...
There is increasing policy, practice and academic interest in “inclusive innovation”. In simple terms, this is the means by which new goods and services are developed for and/or by those who have been excluded from the development mainstream; particularly the...
This paper, facilitated by FARA, is intended to contribute towards an understanding of ‘Integrated Agricultural Research for Development’ (IAR4D). The authors first review four ‘defining principles’ of IAR4D, the theories and experiences that have contributed to the formulation of these principles,...
This paper reflects on the experience of the Research Into Use (RIU) projects in Asia. It reconfirms much of what has been known for many years about the way innovation takes place and finds that many of the shortcomings of...