Guidelines for innovation platforms in agricultural research for development: decision support for research, development and funding agencies on how to design, budget and implement impactful innovation platforms

Abstract

Innovation Platforms are an increasingly popular approach to enhancing multi-stakeholder collaboration in agricultural research for development (AR4D) programmes. Innovation Platforms facilitate interaction and collaboration within and between networks of farmers, governmental and non-governmental service providers, policymakers, researchers, private sector players, and other stakeholders in the agricultural system (Schut et al., 2016). As the name indicates, Innovation Platforms have an innovation objective, that is, the introduction and utilization of any new knowledge (technological or other) in an economic or social process (OECD, 1999). Innovation Platforms encourage creativity and learning, and provide a safe environment for multiple actors to experiment and explore solutions to their joint problems (Homann-Kee Tui et al., 2015). Depending on the level at which an Innovation Platform is established (e.g. village, regional, national), and on those initiating the platform, the objective might be to tackle a specific technological, organizational, or institutional challenge in a value chain (e.g. access to high quality potato seeds) or a more generic problem that needs to be addressed across value chains (e.g. farmers’ access to agricultural credit). Once the Innovation Platform has achieved its objective, its members may (or may not) decide to take up new challenges. Innovation Platforms can start as informal networks and be forged into more formalized structures, such as public-private partnerships, with the ultimate goal of becoming self-sustaining entities. Over the past years, Innovation Platforms have increasingly been established within the framework of AR4D initiatives. The Innovation Platform approach is particularly being embraced as a model for achieving development outcomes and impacts. Given the growing momentum of Innovation Platforms, this seems to be a good time to consider both their promise and their limitations. The objective is to generate realistic expectations about what Innovation Platforms can and cannot achieve in AR4D initiatives. As the implementation of Innovation Platforms can consume significant time, energy, and other resources, these guidelines are geared towards development practitioners, researchers, funding agencies, or farmer unions themselves interested in using Innovation Platforms in their AR4D or business development programmes.