Well-designed and supported innovation niches may facilitate transitions towards sustainable agricultural futures, which may follow different approaches and paradigms such as agroecology, local place-based food systems, vertical farming, bioeconomy, urban agriculture, and smart farming or digital farming.
The interactions between bottom-up initiatives and top-down structures in the implementation of regional development policies and projects are complex in theoretical and practical terms. Using concepts such as transformative social innovation, adaptive governance, and bridging institutions, we developed an analytical framework to enhance understanding of the processes by which local top-down and bottom-up forces enhance sustainable rural development by co-developing bottom-linked governance.
Recently, increasing attention has been paid to intermediaries, actors connecting multiple other actors, in transition processes. Research has highlighted that intermediary actors (e.g. innovation funders, energy agencies, NGOs, membership organisations, or internet discussion forums) operate in many levels to advance transitions. The authors argue that intermediation, and the need for it, varies during the course of transition. Yet, little explicit insight exists on intermediation in different transition phases.
Intermediary actors have been proposed as key catalysts that speed up change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. Research on this topic has gradually gained traction since 2009, but has been complicated by the inconsistency regarding what intermediaries are in the context of such transitions and which activities they focus on, or should focus on. This study briefly elaborates on the conceptual foundations of the studies of intermediaries in transitions, and how intermediaries have been connected to different transition theories.
This report documents the history of the systems of rice intensification (SRI, for short) in India in the last few years and presents some of the institutional changes and challenges that SRI throws up. The first part looks at the complex and continuing evolution of SRI in India and presents SRI as an innovation in process and not as a completed product. Farmers and other actors are continuously shaping it through their practice. Part II focuses on insights of the innovation systems framework looking closely at the nature and quality of linkages of the various actors.