A two-dimensional outcome pathway model for research for development (R4D) programs

The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) is a research for development program that focuses on improving the lives and environment of stakeholders through improved water management in the agriculture and fisheries sectors. To successfully meet the program goal, a project’s outcome pathway must be designed in such a way that makes the project theories of change explicit. The project must make explicit the cause and effect logic, by which its research will help achieve developmental outcomes. In the first phase of the CPWF, projects designed their outcome pathways as a linear logic model starting from inputs to activities to outputs and then outcomes. Outputs and outcomes are linked by intermediate outcomes from the scaling-up and scaling–out processes. This model was found to be an oversimplification. Thus, in Phase 2, CPWF revised the outcome pathway into a two-dimensional logic model, with institutional scale as the second dimension. This logic model was developed through a participatory impact pathway analysis as part of the ex-post impact assessment of the project, Coastal Resource Management for Improving Livelihoods. The two-dimensional outcome pathway model consists of interdependent outcome pathways on at least three scale levels: farm, community, and an enabling environment that affects both. The model describes how project research will influence behavior of actors at the three scales and how these pathways support each other. The Basin Development Challenge Programs in CPWF Phase 2 use this framework to plan for widescale and sustainable adoption of technologies

Report on Ganges BDC Reflection Workshop

Phase II of the CGIAR Challenge Program for Water and Food (CPWF) is a multi-institutional and inter-disciplinary research for development initiative focused on increasing the resilience of social and ecological systems through better water management for food production.Phase II in the Ganges Basin began in 2011 and is scheduled to end in 2014. With the aim of improving the livelihoods of Ganges coastal zone farmers in Bangladesh and West Bengal India, the five projects comprising the Challenge are focusing on areas where there is already some level of water control, especially within the polders of Bangladesh but also extending to areas outside polders in India.The goal of the Challenge is to reduce poverty and improve livelihood resilience. The first most important function of the Reflection Workshop is that it allows Ganges BDC project teams to share their individual project activities, findings, issues, opportunities and visions.This enables the BDC team as a whole to discuss, collectively, any adjustments that need to be made to better address the goal of the BDC, and to identify early results that should be built on, particularly for out and upscaling

Most significant change stories from the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF)

The following stories were collected from CPWF project and theme leaders in two rounds. The first round of stories were collected in January 2007 based on the following two questions: What has been the most significant technical development or advance made by your 1) CPWF project / theme / basin since the start? What has been the most significant partnership change (significant in terms of making 2) scientific progress and/or developmental impact more likely) that has taken place since the start of your CPWF project (or theme or basin)? In June 2009 we repeated the process asking the same basic question, without specifying between technical and partnership changes. We asked for photographs and references to documents that substantiate the stories. We collected 54 stories in Round 1, and 15 in Round 2. A selection of 44 stories are presented here. Those we left out we did so if the stories they told were not clear, if they did not follow the format, or if we did not receive answers to clarifying questions. T he stories are organized by the CPWF’s five themes and according to First Call projects, Basin Focal Projects and Small Grants projects. They show the broad range of outcomes and impacts that the CPWF is beginning to have. The stories are not a comprehensive audit of CPWF impact, but rather what people felt motivated to write about. The stories provide gateways to evidence of change, and are not to be interpreted as definitive but as iterative. Indeed, some projects presented change stories in both rounds. CPWF Theme Leaders selected the first round story or stories they thought most significant and gave their reasons. The selection decisions and criteria are given as feedback to the projects as a way for the CPWF to focus innovation towards explicitly valued directions and away from less valued ones. One story was selected as the most significant from the second round stories. T he Most Significant Change (MSC) method was used to collect and analyze the stories1. MSC is part of a repertoire of iterative learning-based approaches that are employed by the CPWF and its projects in response to emergent change. The authors of the stories are principally the program’s Theme Leaders, Project Leaders and Principle Investigators. In writing the stories they were able to give their interpretation of the emerging issues and changes that most mattered to the leadership in these projects

A comparative study of safety zone visualisations for virtual and physical robot arms using augmented reality

The use of robot arms in various industrial settings has changed the way tasks are completed. However, safety concerns for both humans and robots in these collaborative environments remain a critical challenge. Traditional approaches to visualising safety zones, including physical barriers and warning signs, may not always be effective in dynamic environments or where multiple robots and humans are working simultaneously. Mixed reality technologies offer dynamic and intuitive visualisations of safety zones in real time, with the potential to overcome these limitations. In this study, we compare the effectiveness of safety zone visualisations in virtual and real robot arm environments using the Microsoft HoloLens 2. We tested our system with a collaborative pick-and-place application that mimics a real manufacturing scenario in an industrial robot cell. We investigated the impact of safety zone shape, size, and appearance in this application. Visualisations that used virtual cage bars were found to be the most preferred safety zone configuration for a real robot arm. However, the results for this aspect were mixed for a virtual robot arm experiment. These results raise the question of whether or not safety visualisations can initially be tested in a virtual scenario and the results transferred to a real robot arm scenario, which has implications for the testing of trust and safety in human–robot collaboration environments

Augmented reality for safety zones in human-robot collaboration

Worker productivity in manufacturing could be increased by reducing the distance between robots and humans in human-robot collaboration (HRC). However, physical cages generally limit this interaction. We use Augmented Reality (AR) to visualise virtual safety zones on a real robot arm, thereby replacing the physical cages and bringing humans and robots closer together. We demonstrate this with a collaborative pick and place application that makes use of a Universal Robots 10 (UR10) robot arm and a Microsoft HoloLens 2 for control and visualisation. This mimics a real task in an industrial robot cell. The virtual safety zone sizes are based on ISO standards for HRC. However, we are the first to also consider hardware and network latencies in the calculations of the virtual safety zone sizes

Research in development: learning from the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems

This working paper aims to synthesize and share learning from the experience of adapting and operationalizing the Research in Development (RinD) approach to agricultural research in the five hubs under the The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems. It seeks to share learning about how the approach is working in context and to explore the outcomes it is achieving through initial implementation over 3 ½ years. This learning can inform continuation of agricultural research in the second phase of the CGIAR research programs and will be useful to others aiming to implement research programs that seek to equitably build capacity to innovate in complex social-ecological systems. Each of the chapters in this working paper have shown that RinD has produced a range of outcomes that were often unexpected and broader in scope than might result from other approaches to agricultural research. RinD also produces innovations, and there is evidence that it builds capacity to innovate. - See more at: http://www.aas.cgiar.org/publications/research-development-learning-cgiar-research-program-aquatic-agricultural-systems#sthash.xfjhbHpl.dpu