Facilitating the collaboration of practitioner and scientific knowledge: experiences from an Australian action research intervention

This paper presents results from an action research intervention aimed at strengthening the role of private sector advisers in the Australian agricultural extension system. Private sector advisers participating in the research identified a number of barriers to their effective inclusion in this system. For example, in the traditionally science-centric Australian extension system, persisting industry-led funding structures and processes are perceived as having a ‘gatekeeping function’ when it comes to the setting of practice-based research priorities and therefore the further development and uptake of potential innovations from practice. The paper describes the implementation of a shared knowledge management intervention. Based on principles of action research and collaborative design, participants jointly developed knowledge management processes aimed at breaking sectoral silos (public, private; research and practice) by bringing together a variety of actors in the agricultural knowledge system in two specific case study settings