Missing the target: Lessons from enabling innovation in South Asia

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 goes beyond fostering collaboration, and includes a range of other innovation management tasks (ii) The starting point for making use of research need not necessarily be the promising research products and quite often identifying the promising innovation trajectories is more rewarding (iii) Strengthening the innovation enabling environment of policies and institutions is critical if research use is to lead to long-term and large-scale impacts. It is in respect of this third point that RIU Asia missed its target, as it failed to make explicit efforts to address policy and institutional change, despite its innovation systems rhetoric. This severely restricted its ability to achieve wide-scale social and economic impact that was the original rationale for the programme.Research Into Use, Innovation Management, Agricultural Research, Innovation, Development, Policy, Value Chain Development, South Asia, Innovation Trajectory

The New Extensionist: Roles and Cap acities to Strengthen Extension and Advisory Services

Extension and advisory services (EAS) perform an important role in agricultural development and help reduce hunger and poverty. Development efforts are increasingly complicated because of challenges such as natural resource depletion and climate change. Agricultural development frameworks have moved from a linear to a more complex systems perspective. Many scholars today use the agricultural innovation systems (AIS) framework as a conceptual model. This framework has three basic elements: all of the actors in the system that brings about agricultural innovation, their interactions, and the institutions and policies governing their interactions. Taking this approach while dealing with the challenges of development today implies new roles and capacities for extension. The authors discuss these new roles and capacities based on an action inquiry process of global dialog and consensus building, to present a vision for EAS within AIS, called the new extensionist(Sulaiman & Davis, 2012). The authors explore individual roles and capacities, and also those at the organizational and system level (Sulaiman & Davis, 2012). The authors discuss the importance of agricultural education in developing these roles and capacities, and bringing more knowledge to bear on the issu

Tacit Knowledge and Innovation Capacity: Evidence from the Indian Livestock Sector

To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation's ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part. This discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity though the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India. Analysis of two episodes in Visakha's evolution clearly illustrates how it used tacit knowledge to innovate around challenges. The paper concludes that while tacit knowledge is clearly a major resource that organisations rely on to cope with change, it does not follow that knowledge management approaches that rely on codifying this knowledge are the way forward. Instead, what it does suggest is that better management of the learning processes, through which tacit knowledge is generated, would be a more useful contribution to innovation and innovation capacity - in other words, a shift from knowledge management to learning management.Innovation Systems, Innovation Capacity, Tacit Knowledge, Livestock, India Journal

Enhancing Capacities of Digital Extension and Advisory Services in Odisha, India

While several digital platforms and applications developed for farmers collect data and information, more is needed to know about their use by the Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) to provide more relevant advice or design a data-informed extension. This report discusses what needs to be done to enhance the capacities of EAS based on in-depth reviews of farmers' use of three digital farmer services available in Odisha and interactions with select stakeholders who are familiar with and are part of these services. We found that EAS stakeholders needed to be fully aware of the types of data and information available or how best they could be used. We identified that four specific types of capacities need to be strengthened coherently and systematically

Areas for policy action: recommended interventions to address misalignments between STI and the SDGs

We propose a transformation of research funding and support systems, to mobilize a diversity of pathways to address the SDGs. We identify four main areas for action, with specific policy recommendations for research funders and policymakers: 1. Increase funding for SDGrelated research and innovation, particularly in low-income countries 2. Devote more funding to research that addresses underlying social inequalities, social innovations and informal research, in combination with technical solutions 3. Improve alignment between countries’ SDG priorities and their STI portfolios 4. Adopt a more holistic approach to research evaluation, with indicators and data that relate to a range of desired inputs, outcomes and impact

New Agendas for Agricultural Research in Developing Countries: Policy Analysis and Institutional Implications

This article argues that the goals of agricultural research in poor countries have changed substantially over the last four decades. In particular they have broadened from the early (and narrow) emphasis on food production to a much wider agenda that includes poverty alleviation, environmental degradation, and social inclusion. Conversely, agricultural research systems have proved remarkably resistant to the concomitant need for changes in research focus. As a result many, at both the national and international level, are under great strain. In terms of public policy the article goes on to suggest that shortcomings of existing conceptual approaches to technology development could be supplemented by adopting analytical principles that view innovation in systemic terms. An approach where flows of knowledge between institutional nodes is a key to innovative performance (the “National Systems of Innovation” approach) is suggested as one such conceptual framework that might help supplement conventional policy analysis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a workshop “New Policy Agendas for Agricultural Research: Implications for Institutional Arrangements” held on 28 March 2000 at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India. The workshop was supported by the UK Department of International Development (DFID) Crop Post-Harvest Programme as an output of the project “Optimising Institutional Arrangements.

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely