The recently-concluded International Food Policy Research Institute conference, “Advancing Agriculture in Developing Countries through Knowledge and Innovation”, was one more signal that the idea of an innovation system is now an integral part of the new international vision for agricultural development. In the April edition of the LINK News Bulletin (subscribe to it by emailing info@innovationstudies.org) Andy Hall says the conference also revealed this ambition is yet to be translated into action. More worrying is that critical sticking points — such as questions about how innovation should be evaluated — arise from the closely-guarded disciplinary perspectives of a small but powerful group of stakeholders in the international agricultural research community that has recently and reluctantly hitched itself to the agricultural innovation systems bandwagon. Andy concludes that unless the international agricultural research community legitimises a much broader suite of evaluation , the expansion of the agricultural innovation repertoire is going to be , and that will harm us all. Can a new innovation evaluation gold standard be arrived at? What would it look like and how can agreement on this be achieved? What do you think? We would love to know, so please do comment!
