This paper aims to map the experience of the RIU Asia projects and draw out the main innovation management tactics being observed while laying the groundwork for further research on this topic. It provides a framework to help analyse the sorts of innovation management tasks that are becoming important. This framework distinguishes four elements of innovation management: (i) Functions (ii) Actions (iii) Tools and (iv) Organisational Format.
The question of how agricultural research can best be used for developmental purposes is a topic of some debate in developmental circles. The idea that this is simply a question of better transfer of ideas from research to farmers has been largely discredited. Agricultural innovation is a process that takes a multitude of different forms, and, within this process, agricultural research and expertise are mobilised at different points in time for different purposes. This paper uses two key analytical principles in order to find how research is actually put into use.
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 RIU in Asia were precisely because lessons from previous research on agricultural innovation were “not put into use” in the programme’s implementation. However, the experience provides three important lessons for donors and governments to make use of agricultural research: (i) Promoting research into use requires enabling innovation.
This paper is a reflection on a research project that defied the conventional technology transfer approach and adopted an approach based on innovation system principles to address fodder scarcity. Fodder scarcity in the project was conceptualized not as lack of technical capacity, but as lack of innovation capacity. This project tried to enhance innovation capacity by promoting appropriate configurations of stakeholders. However, translating this theory and principles into action was fraught with numerous challenges.
This book represents the proceedings of the FAO international technical conference dedicated to Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10) that took place in Guadalajara, Mexico on 1-4 March 2010. A major objective of the conference was to take stock of the application of biotechnologies across the different food and agricultural sectors in developing countries, in order to learn from the past and to identify options for the future to face the challenges of food insecurity, climate change and natural resource degradation.
This guide is intended to assist facilitators in conducting a workshop with Extension and Advisory Service (EAS) providers for assessing their capacity needs. This guide has been compiled by the Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy (CRISP) for AESA with the assistance of a research grant from the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS).
Over the past few decades, some countries in Asia have been more successful than others in addressing poverty and malnutrition. The key question is what policies, strategies, legislation and institutional arrangements have led to a transformed agricultural sector, effectively contributing to poverty alleviation and addressing malnutrition. The great majority of national policymakers within and outside the Asia-Pacific region are keen to understand the causes of agricultural development and transformation in successful countries in Asia.
The creation of Competitive Research Grants (CRGs) is globally recognized as an institutional innovation for improving the effectiveness of agricultural research. Unlike block grants for research, CRGs are expected to bring in many top-quality proposals from a wide range of actors, selecting the best out of them and thus getting more value for money.
What can we learn from ongoing initiatives? There has been a lot of interest during the last two decades in employing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for achieving development. While many of these initiatives have benefited rural women by way of access to new information and new employment opportunities, women still face a number of constraints in accessing ICTs. This paper explores the role of ICTs in empowering Indian rural women, through a review of ICT initiatives in India.
The universal application of the T&V model of agricultural extension in more than 50 countries is one of agricultural development’s best known failures. The approach worked well in places where it was originally developed, but proved inappropriate almost everywhere else. In this report Rasheed Sulaiman V. and Andy Hall worry that an apparently successful extension innovation piloted in India is set to suffer a similar fate.