Innovation Platforms (IPs) are seen as a promising vehicle to foster a paradigm shift in agricultural research for development (AR4D). By facilitating interaction, negotiation and collective action between farmers, researchers and other stakeholders, IPs can contribute to more integrated, systemic innovation that is essential for achieving agricultural development impacts. However, successful implementation of IPs requires institutional change within AR4D establishments.

Multi-stakeholder (MS) platforms, such as innovation platforms (IP), public-private partnerships (PPP) are becoming more common but what they can achieve in innovation and scaling is limited and depends on different factors. This poster and the broader research paper provide evidence what MS platforms can and cannot achieve in their early phases and give insights about effectiveness and efficiency of Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) interventions such as CGIAR research programs (CRPs) in low and middle income countries.

Innovation platforms are fast becoming part of the mantra of agricultural research and development projects and programs with an innovation objective.

This poster has been developed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Wageningen University (WUR) under the CGIAR research program on Roots Tubers and Banana (RTB) and describes shortly the science-based methods to identify and overcome bottlenecks for scaling of innovation. It breaks down innovation packages and analyses its individual technological, policy, market and partnership components along a 9-Level Scaling Readiness Ladder science-based methods to identify and overcome bottlenecks for scaling of innovation

Although much has been written on how to implement and facilitate innovation platforms efficiently, few studies support ex-ante appraisal of when and for what purpose innovation platforms provide an appropriate mechanism for achieving development outcomes, and what kinds of human and financial resource investments and enabling environments are required. Without these insights, innovation platforms run the risk of being promoted as a panacea for all problems in the agricultural sector.

Mixed family farms produce almost half of the world food. Increasing food supply in developing countries requires increasing productivity of both land and farmers’ labour as key to increase household income, food security and reduce poverty. A research project developed into Uruguayan vegetable family farms (2006–2010) revealed that the main life quality problems were low family income, high work overload, lack of leisure time, and health problems associated with work. In many of these farms, labour productivity was lower than the opportunity cost of labour.

Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) have been playing an increasing role in interventions aiming to generate and scale innovations in agricultural systems. However, the contribution of MSPs in achieving innovations and scaling has been varied, and many factors have been reported to be important for their performance. This paper aims to provide evidence on the contribution of MSPs to innovation and scaling by focusing on three developing country cases in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda.

Ecological intensification has been proposed as a promising lever for a transition towards more sustainable food systems. Various food systems exist that are based on ecological intensification and may have potential for a sustainability transition. Little is known, however, about their diversity and about how they perform against dominant systems in terms of the multiple societal goals. The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about sustainability transitions in food systems through an empirical analysis of vegetable food systems in Chile.

In this paper it is reviewed the literature on how transitions to sustainable food systems may play out and present a framework based on the Multi-Level Perspective on Socio-Technical Transitions, which builds upon conceptual developments from social and natural science disciplines.

Multi-stakeholder platforms have become mainstream in projects, programmes and policy interventions aiming to improve innovation and livelihoods systems, i.e. research for development interventions in low-and middle-income contexts. However, the evidence for multi-stakeholder platforms' contribution to the performance of research for development interventions and their added value is not compelling. This paper focuses on stakeholder participation as one of the channels for multi-stakeholder platforms' contribution to the performance of research for development interventions, i.e.