Scaling up innovations in smallholder agriculture: Lessons from the Canadian international food security research fund

This article presents programmatic lessons on scaling up research for development innovations that were implemented through the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF). Co-funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC), CIFSRF was a nine-year, two-phased program (2009–2018) that supported applied research to develop, test and scale proven food and nutrition security innovations. The outline of this paper is as follows. The next (2nd) section provides an overview of CIFSRF program design as it relates to scaling and outlines the methodological approach used to analyse project results. CIFSRF's program objectives seemingly recognized the utility of a systems perspective and sought to support projects that engaged with relevant socio-ecological dynamics and complexities in project intervention areas as a way to support innovations (at scale) that could contribute to more sustainable system outcomes