Multi-Stakeholder Processes and Innovation Systems towards Science for impact

Multi_stakeholder processes (MSPs) have become an important phenomena in the work of many of the Science Groups and knowledge units of Wageningen UR. To realise ‘science for impact’ it is increasingly recognized that stakeholder engagement is a critical element. Much remains to be understood about their role and effectiveness in a wider context of politics, governance and societal change. There is clearly value to be gained from the efforts of Wageningen UR wide sharing and critical reflection processes. The CD&IC programme, Wageningen International, hosted a Critical Reflection Day, building on existing and past initiatives such as Own experiences, the Transition lab and deepening of Communities of Practice of action learning and ‘Telen met Toekomst’. The Critical Reflection Day was part of the three_week international course on 'Facilitating Multi_stakeholder Processes and Social Learning' attended by some 30 participants from all over the world. They facilitated and actively took part in the Critical Reflection Da

Collective action for innovation and small farmer market access: The Papa Andina experience

"The Andean highlands are home to some of the poorest rural households in South America. Native potato varieties and local knowledge for their cultivation and use are unique resources possessed by farmers in these areas. As the forces of globalization and market integration penetrate the Andes, they present both challenges and opportunities for farmers there. This paper reports on how the Papa Andina Regional Initiative is promoting the use of collective action to reduce poverty in the Andes, by developing market niches and adding value to potatoes, particularly the native potatoes grown by poor farmers. Since 1998, Papa Andina has worked with partners in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru to stimulate pro-poor innovation within market chains for potato-based products. Market chain actors (including small-scale potato producers, traders, and processors), researchers, and other service providers have engaged in innovation processes via two principal tools for facilitating collective action: the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) and Stakeholder Platforms. The PMCA fosters commercial, technological, and institutional innovation through a structured process that builds interest, trust, and collaboration among participants. Stakeholder Platforms provide a space for potato producers, other market chain actors, and service providers to come together to identify their common interests, share knowledge, and develop joint activities. The PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms have empowered Andean potato farmers by expanding their knowledge of markets, market agents, and business opportunities. Social networks built up among producers, market agents, and service providers have stimulated commercial innovation, which in turn has stimulated technical and institutional innovation. These innovations have allowed small farmers to market their potatoes on more favorable terms and other market chain actors to increase their incomes. This paper describes experiences with collective action in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, via the PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms. Based on these experiences, a number of lessons are formulated for using collective action to stimulate innovation, market access, and poverty reduction in other settings." authors' abstractCollective action, Small farmers, Potato, Participatory methods, Innovation, stakeholders, Markets,

Making sense of the New Economy

Dit rapport presenteert een overzicht van de mogelijke definiërende, stuwende factoren achter de zogenaamde 'nieuwe economie'. Op basis van bedrijfskundige en economische literatuur worden vijf causale redenaties ('logica's') herleid. De causale redenaties beschrijven een aantal verbanden tussen informatie- en communicatietechnologieën en economische groei. Daarnaast wordt ingegaan op de effecten van ICT en een aantal prioriteiten voor toegepast onderzoek over ondernemerschap en ondernemingsgedrag.

Actionable Supply Chain Management Insights for 2016 and Beyond

The summit World Class Supply Chain 2016: Critical to Prosperity , contributed to addressing a need that the Supply Chain Management (SCM) field’s current discourse has deemed as critical: that need is for more academia-­‐industry collaboration to develop the field’s body of actionable knowledge. Held on May 4th, 2016 in Milton, Ontario, the summit addressed that need in a way that proved to be both effective and distinctive in the Canadian SCM environment. The summit, convened in partnership between Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis School of Business & Economics and CN Rail, focused on building actionable SCM knowledge to address three core questions: What are the most significant SCM issues to be confronted now and beyond 2016? What SCM practices are imperative now and beyond 2016? What are optimal ways of ensuring that (a) issues of interest to SCM practitioners inform the scholarly activities of research and teaching and (b) the knowledge generated from those scholarly activities reciprocally guide SCM practice? These are important questions for supply chain professionals in their efforts to make sense of today’s business environment that is appropriately viewed as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The structure of the deliberations to address these questions comprised two keynote presentations and three panel discussions, all of which were designed to leverage the collective wisdom that comes from genuine peer-­‐to-­‐peer dialogue between the SCM practitioners and SCM scholars. Specifically, the structure aimed for a balanced blend of industry and academic input and for coverage of the SCM issues of greatest interest to attendees (as determined through a pre-­‐summit survey of attendees). The structure produced impressively wide-­‐ranging deliberations on the aforementioned questions. The essence of the resulting findings from the summit can be distilled into three messages: Given today’s globally significant trends such as changes in population demographics, four highly impactful levers that SCM executives must expertly handle to attain excellence are: collaboration; information; technology; and talent Government policy, especially for infrastructure, is a significant determinant of SCM excellence There is tremendous potential for mutually beneficial industry-academia knowledge co-creation/sharing aimed at research and student training This white paper reports on those findings as well as on the summit’s success in realizing its vision of fostering mutually beneficial industry-academia dialogue. The paper also documents what emerged as matters that are inadequately understood and should therefore be targeted in the ongoing quest for deeper understanding of actionable SCM insights. Deliberations throughout the day on May 4th, 2016 and the encouraging results from the pre-­‐summit and post-­‐summit surveys have provided much inspiration to enthusiastically undertake that quest. The undertaking will be through initiatives that include future research projects as well as next year’s summit–World Class Supply Chain 2017

International trade negotiations and the trans-border movement of people: A review of the literature

We review the international and New Zealand literatures on the two-way interaction between international migration and agreements designed to enhance cross-border trade or investment. Benefits and costs of migration, to the extent that these may feature in trade and migration negotiations, are discussed. While trade and migration can be substitutes in some contexts, they will be complements in other contexts. Liberalisation of services and the movement of people are likely to offer much more significant gains than liberalisation of remaining barriers to goods trade. Significant scope for liberalisation under GATS mode 4 (the movement of natural persons) may remain. However, temporary migration is already promoted on a unilateral and bilateral basis within immigration policy frameworks that may provide greater flexibility than GATS mode 4. With respect to both trade and migration, the more diverse the exchanging countries are, the greater the economic benefits tend to be. However, greater diversity may also imply greater social costs. This paradox of diversity needs to be addressed through appropriate social policies accompanying enhanced temporary and permanent migration

Learning towards system innovation.Evaluating a systemic instrument.

In this paper we develop an analytical framework for studying learning processes in the context of efforts to bring about system innovation by building new networks of actors who are willing to work on a change towards sustainable development. We then use it to evaluate two specific intervention programmes carried out by a self-proclaimed ‘system instrument’. The framework integrates elements from the Innovation Systems approach with a social learning perspective. The integrated model proposes essentially that these kinds of systemic instruments can serve to enhance conditions for social learning and that such processes may result in learning effects that contribute to system innovation by combatting system imperfections. The empirical findings confirm the assumption that differences in learning can be explained by the existence or absence of conditions for learning. Similarly, the existence or creation of conducive conditions could be linked to the nature and quality of the interventions of the systemic instrument. We conclude that the investigated part of the hypothesised model has not been refuted and seems to have explanatory power. At the same time we propose that further research is needed among others on the relation between learning, challenging system imperfections and system innovation.social learning, system innovation, systemic instruments, system imperfections, innovation systems

Going for Growth; a Theoretical and Policy Framework

This paper introduces scenario planning as a tool to explore plausible developments for SMEs in the Netherlands until 2040. Globalization has resulted in the emergence of an increasingly borderless society with greater unrestricted movement of information, travel, and currency between countries. As policy and technological developments in the past few decades have spurred increases in cross-border trade, investment, and migration, new policy approaches in the economic, political, environmental, and social sphere will be necessary. On the national level, SMEs are acknowledged to play an important role in the economy serving as agent of change by their entrepreneurial activity, being the source of considerable innovative activity, stimulating industry evolution and creating an important share of the newly generated jobs. Entrepreneurship should therefore be promoted, but on a national level, since global development takes places in stages. Government policy, it is believed, can play a considerable role in facilitating entrepreneurship on a national scale. There is however great uncertainty on the scale of future bottlenecks and the economic conditions under which SMEs will need to develop. Scenarios can help map out possible changes and what effect they may have on national welfare.DYNREG

The Acoustics of Social Learning: Designing learning processes that contribute to a more sustainable world.

Learning for Sustainable Development contributes to a society in which citizens, companies, organisations, and authorities learn about sustainable development and are desiring, willing, and able to contribute to it