As the COVID-19 pandemic turns into a global crisis, countries are taking measures to contain the pandemic. Supermarket shelves remain stocked for now. But a protracted pandemic crisis could quickly put a strain on the food supply chains, which is a complex web of interactions involving farmers, agricultural inputs, processing plants, shipping, retailers and more. The shipping industry is already reporting slowdowns because of port closures, and logistics hurdles could disrupt the supply chains in the coming weeks.
This publication contains twelve modules which cover a selection of major reform measures in agricultural extension being promulgated and implemented internationally, such as linking farmers to markets, making advisory services more demand-driven, promoting pluralistic advisory systems, and enhancing the role of advisory services within agricultural innovation systems.
While national governments are the main actors in innovation policy, it is observed a proliferation of challenge-oriented innovation policies both at the subnational and the supranational level. This begs the question about subsidiarity: what innovation policies for societal challenges should be organized at subnational, national and supranational levels?
In the past 15 years, Tanzania has made considerable progress in the fight against child undernutrition. This paper analyses in what respects an enabling environment for nutrition action in Tanzania has emerged. It critically investigates the nature of government political commitment and assesses the breadth and depth of a range of public policies, initiatives and actions within and across nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive sectors, and at the national, sub-national and community levels.
Despite the key role of actor networks in progressing new sustainable technologies, there is a shortage of conceptual knowledge on how policy can help strengthen collaborative practices in such networks. The objective of this paper is to analyze the roles of such policies – so-called network management – throughout the entire technological development processes.
This article conceptualizes the diffusion of user innovations from a service ecosystem perspective. With the focus on sustainable innovations, the service ecosystem is evaluated, along with other systemic innovation concepts, as a possible theoretical basis for explaining the first adoption and diffusion of user innovations.
Rather than merely supporting R&D and strengthening innovation systems, the focus of innovation policy is currently shifting towards addressing societal challenges by transforming socio-economic systems. A particular trend within the emerging era of transformative innovation policy is the pursuit of challenge-based innovation missions, such as achieving a 50 % circular economy by 2030. By formulating clear and ambitious societal goals, policy makers are aiming to steer the directionality and adoption of innovation.
So far, numerous studies have exhibited Silicon Valley and other thriving innovation ecosystems by distinguishing special characteristics in which their survival rely on sustaining activities that convert them to specific regions. These regions provide ready-made grounds for networking to be innovative. Meantime, it is struggling for innovations to be transformed into measurable economic results if players encounter a weak network of collaborative relationships in the ecosystem.
Despite typically beingregarded as ‘low-tech,’ the Food Manufacturing and Technology Sectoris increasingly turning to open innovation practices involving collaboration with universities in order to innovate. Given the broad range of activities undertaken by this sector and thefact that it utilises analytical, synthetic, and symbolic knowledge for innovation, it makes an interesting case study on the factors that influence the formation of University-Industry links.
Agricultural research and extension systems are central to unlock the potential of agricultural innovation and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Public agricultural research, extension and advisory services are essential for increasing productivity and promoting sustainable agricultural growth and alleviating poverty.