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Adekunle, A.A.

Ballantyne, Peter G.

Birachi, Eliud Abucheli

Cadilhon, Joseph J.

Duncan, Alan J.

Homann-Kee Tui, Sabine

Klerkx, Laurens

Lundy, Mark

Mundy, Paul

Schut, Marc

Tucker, Josephine

Lundy, Mark M.

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Innovation platforms practice brief 1, November 20131to develop a common vision and find ways to achieve their goals. They may design and implement activi-ties as a group or coordinate activities by individual members. Individual members can also innovate alone, spurred by the coordinated group activities. Innovation platforms may tackle challenges and opportunities at various levels: in a village or com-munity, in a district or nationwide, or throughout a value chain or economic sector. They may work at a single level, or across several levels.Innovation platforms are particularly useful in agricul-ture because agricultural issues tend to be complex. They involve different biophysical, socioeconomic and political factors, and concern various formal and in-formal institutions. By bringing together stakeholders Innovation platforms are ways to bring together different stakeholders to identify solutions to common problems or to achieve common goals. They ensure that different interests are taken into account, and various groups contribute to find-ing solutions. Used by the private sector to gather information and improve networking among key stakeholders in a particular economic sector, they caught the attention of development agencies at the end of the 1980s. They are now increasingly com-mon in research and development initiatives.But innovation platforms can be difficult and time-consuming, so must be used with care. This brief ex-plains what innovation platforms are and how they work, and it describes some of their advantages and limitations. It is one of a series of briefs on innova-tion platforms; the other briefs in the series go into detail on specific aspects of the approach.Spaces for learning and changeAn innovation platform is a group of individuals (who often represent organizations) with different backgrounds and interests: farmers, agricultural input suppliers, traders, food processors, researchers, gov-ernment officials etc. The members come together DefinitionsAn innovation platform is a space for learning and change. It is a group of individuals (who often repre-sent organizations) with different backgrounds and in-terests: farmers, traders, food processors, researchers, government officials etc.  The members come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities and find ways to achieve their goals. They may design and imple-ment activities as a platform, or coordinate activities by individual members.Innovation platforms practice brief  1What are innovation platforms?Innovation platforms practice brief  1Innovation platforms practice brief 1, November 20132Examples of innovation platformsThe Consortium for Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion (www.condesan.org) uses innova-tion platforms to address issues in natural resource management. They engage local actors to discuss how to share benefits and resolve conflicts. In the Fodder Adoption Project, the International Live-stock Research Institute (fodderadoption.wordpress.com/) used innovation platforms in Ethiopia to improve livestock feeding. Through platform discussions, the project’s initial narrow focus on feed broadened to include the procurement of improved crossbred cows, new milk transportation arrangements, and the establishment of a dairy cooperative. Innovation platforms are also used in several other projects notably the Nile Basin Development Chal-lenge (http://nilebdc.org), and the imGoats (http://imgoats.org) and PROGEBE (http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/27871) projects. In southern Africa, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (www.icrisat.org) used innovation platforms to improve the produc-tion and marketing of goats. Innovation platforms helped lower transaction costs in the value chain, meant that farmers could make a bigger profit, and ensured that the market could guide investment in goat production.The Convergence of Science–Strengthening Innovation Systems program (www.cos-sis.org) used innovation platforms in West Africa to improve smallholder agri-culture. The platforms studied bottlenecks in produc-tion systems and induced institutional changes in value chains and policymaking. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture and its partners (www.alianzasdeaprendizaje.org) devel-oped a regional ‘learning alliance’ in Central America to improve market access for farmers through collabora-tive innovation.The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (www.fara-africa.org) promotes the use of innovation plat-forms in integrated agricultural research for devel-opment programs that target productivity, markets, natural resource management and policy issues.More: : ilri.org/taxonomy/term/58in various sectors and from different levels, innova-tion platforms may be able to identify and address common concerns more effectively.Innovation platforms can be used to explore strate-gies that can boost productivity, manage natural re-sources, improve value chains, and adapt to climate change. Some innovation platforms focus on single issues; others deal with multiple topics.Who uses innovation platforms?Various types of organizations use innovation plat-forms: •	 Agricultural research organizations use inno-vation platforms to help make their research more relevant and to facilitate the adapta-tion and dissemination of findings. They force researchers to look beyond their own disciplin-ary or commodity boundaries and consider the whole picture (see Brief 3).•	 Development agencies and NGOs find them useful to identify areas for interventions, to en-sure that the interventions are appropriate for particular situations, and to enable stakeholders to influence policy making and development activities (Brief 12). •	 Local and national governments use them to improve policy making, links with clients, and their outreach services for citizens (Brief 2). •	 Donors regard innovation platforms as a way to improve the targeting and effectiveness of de-velopment interventions. While they may spon-sor innovation platforms, they are not normally members themselves.Some stakeholders are crucial members of innova-tion platforms:•	 Farmers and other rural people use innovation groups to express their interests and guide activities that are intended to benefit them.•	 The private sector, including traders, input sup-pliers, service providers, processors, wholesal-ers and retailers, can benefit from innovation platforms that aim to boost economic activities and make value chains more profitable.Innovation platforms practice brief 1, November 20133How innovation platforms workInnovation platforms generally follow several steps.•	 Initiate.  Any stakeholder group can initiate in-novation platforms, but it is usually a research or development organization, a government agency or an NGO that does so. This organiza-tion identifies the broad focus area of the inno-vation platform, identifies the various stakehold-ers, brings them together, and convenes the first few meetings. It identifies someone to facilitate the innovation platform: perhaps one of its own staff, or someone else from outside (Brief 10).•	 Decide on focus. The platform members discuss the focus area and identify bottlenecks, problems and opportunities. They may refine the focus further, expand it, or shift it to a different set of issues. They gather informa-tion from various sources, including research findings, current practices, local knowledge and policy guidelines (Brief 7). •	 Identify options. The platform members decide what they want to do to solve the problems or take advantage of the opportunities that they have identified. The range of options may be wide. For example, they may decide to test new varieties of a crop, explore ways to improve supplies of inputs, promote the marketing of a product, or press for a change in government policy (Briefs 3 and 6).•	 Test and refine solutions. Solutions must be tested and adapted to make sure they work. Farmers may test new farming methods; trad-ers may try offering more for higher grades of produce; an input supplier may market-test a new type of product. The innovation may be a new technology (a new type of seed or farming technique), or an institutional change (a policy adjustment or a new way to manage market-ing). The innovation platform coordinates these experiments and monitors whether they are successful (Briefs 3 and 5). •	 Develop capacity. In most cases, it is necessary to develop the capacity of different actors in order for the solutions to succeed. Farmers may need training in a new technique; coop-eratives may need help with organization and bookkeeping; new ways may be needed to multiply and distribute seed or to manage the marketing of produce. The innovation platform identifies these needs and finds ways to develop the capacity required (Brief 8).•	 Implement and scale up. If the innovation is suc-cessful, the innovation platform works with its member groups to get it adopted widely. That may mean documenting and publicizing the innovation, arranging training and study visits, persuading other groups to adopt it etc. (Briefs 7 and 9).Innovation platforms tend to follow a seven-step cycleInnovation platforms practice brief 1, November 20134I  •	 Analyse and learn. Learning what has suc-ceeded and what has not is an important part of innovation platforms, especially those with a research focus. This information is fed back to  platform members so they can identify further changes to be made (Briefs 3, 5, 8, 10 and 12).Different words, same idea•	 Concentration	and	innovation	group•	 Innovation	network•	 Innovation	coalition•	 Innovation	configuration•	 Multi-stakeholder	platform•	 Association	interprofessionnelle	(French)•	 Plataforma	de	inovação	(Portuguese)Dynamic processesInnovation platforms are a systematic attempt to facilitate change through joint action. While they are structured, they are also flexible, changing in response to the current situation.Changing focus. As problems are solved and new issues emerge, the activities and focus of an in-novation platform may change over time. It is the platform members who decide.Changing membership. The membership of an innovation platform may change over time as needs arise. The platform may invite new members to join: for example, a platform focusing on agriculture may invite someone with expertise in water to join if this emerges as a key issue in farm production. A platform could bring in outsiders on a short-term or one-off basis to provide information or advice.Changing responsibilities. The management of the innovation platform may shift over time from the initiating organization to one or more of the members. For example, a farmer organization or government agency may take over responsibility for coordinating the platform.Temporary or permanent? Innovation platforms may be temporary: they exist only as long as neces-sary to solve a problem. Or they may be extended as new issues and opportunities emerge. If so, it is necessary to find ways to fund the platform and its activities after initial project funding ends.Links to other bodies. The members of an in-novation platform provide vital links to the orga-nizations or groups they represent. Each member represents his or her organization, and is expected to communicate the platform’s suggestions and activities back to his or her peers.Linking innovation platforms. Some problems cannot be addressed at one level: a district-level platform may identify a policy that needs to be changed at a national level. It may be useful to form innovation platforms at several levels (community, district, national) to address problems at each one. Innovation platforms at each level should be linked to feed ideas and information up, down and side-ways (Brief 9).Benefits of innovation platforms Strengths of innovation platforms include: •	 They facilitate dialogue and understanding among stakeholders and provide a space for them to create a common vision and mutual trust. They offer a neutral space to air disagree-ments and conflicts, and for members to state their needs and requirements (Brief 4).•	 They enable partners to identify the bottle-necks hindering innovation, and develop solu-tions beyond what individual actors can achieve alone, for example, in infrastructure, institutional change and policy development (Brief 2).•	 They create motivation and a feeling of owner-ship of the solutions that they develop: People readily buy into solutions they have been involved in developing. •	 They facilitate upward communication. They enable weaker actors (such as small-scale farm-ers) to express their views on an equal basis Innovation platform actors and stakeholdersInnovation platforms practice brief 1, November 20135with powerful actors (such as processors or the government). They empower communities to demand and negotiate for services from the government and support organizations.•	 They lead to better-informed decisions. In-novation platforms enable joint learning and cooperation among diverse actors to solve problems and reduce uncertainties. Farmers can learn how to sell their products; policymakers gain evidence to use in creating a more enabling environment where innovations can happen.•	 They contribute to capacity development. By improving communication, learning and ex-posure to new people and ideas, innovation platforms help members to clarify their roles, organize themselves, and adapt to unforeseen changes and new opportunities (Briefs 7 and 8).•	 They make innovative research possible. In-novation platforms create opportunities for research to be demand-driven, to find critical issues for investigation, and to disseminate re-search outputs. Platform members are involved in the research process, and are more likely to be convinced by the findings (Brief 3).•	 They enhance impact. Farmers can improve their agricultural productivity and profitability and improve how they manage natural resourc-es. Value chain actors can engage more effec-tively in the market. Policy making can be more participatory and appropriate for solving issues on the ground (Brief 12).Related approaches •	 Public–private	partnerships.	These	may	focus	on developing technologies such as hybrid maize and biotech together with industry. But they may neglect stakeholders such as farm-ers and government. •	 Participatory	research.	This	is	useful	to	adapt	technologies to farm conditions. But it may fail to consider outside constraints, such as issues or bottlenecks in the value chain.•	 Learning	alliances.	These	enable	groups	of	farmers or traders to work together and learn from each other. But they rarely bring in other perspectives.Constraints Innovation platforms are not the solution to all problems. Because they are not rigid or predictable, they can lead a research or development program in unexpected directions (which may be a good thing, but can be hard to justify to senior managers and donors). Depending on the circumstances, other approaches, such as more traditional research coordination meetings, stakeholder consultations, or participa-tory research methods, may be more appropriate. All these methods can be used in conjunction with innovation platforms.•	 Progress and success depends on the full buy-in of the members. Members have to be willing to work together and trust each other. Social and institutional conflicts, lack of political will, and power structures can hinder the growth of the innovation platform (Brief 4). •	 Innovation platforms can be difficult and costly to implement. They require a range of facilita-tion and research expertise—which may not be available. The costs of fostering partnerships should be seen as an investment—requiring a long-term perspective (Brief 10). •	 They require a long-term perspective: engaging actors and developing relationships takes time. Necessary investments in infrastructure and policies are often long-term. Achieving visible outputs may take longer than a project allows. •	 It can be difficult to monitor and evaluate in-novation platforms in a systematic way. Their outcomes depend on many factors, and many other factors may intervene to reinforce or mask their effects (Brief 5).•	 Shortcuts are risky. Developing and promoting innovation requires systems thinking, including technical as well as institutional innovations and policy adaptations. There is a danger of regard-ing innovation platforms merely as forums to transfer and disseminate technology. •	 Tangible outputs are needed to sustain the mem-bers’ interest and commitment to the innovation process. Without them, they may lose interest.CreditsAuthors: Sabine Homann-Kee Tui (ICRISAT), Adewale Adekunle (FARA), Mark Lundy (CIAT), Josephine Tucker (ODI), Eliud Birachi (CIAT), Marc Schut (Wageningen UR), Laurens Klerkx (Wageningen UR), Peter Ballantyne (ILRI),  Alan Duncan (ILRI),  Jo Cadilhon (ILRI) and Paul Mundy (ILRI)Artwork: Beniyam Seyoum, Tewodros Girma and Alfred Ombati  Editors: Paul Mundy and Peter BallantyneLayout: Meron MulatuOther briefs in this series 1 What are innovation platforms?2 Innovation platforms to shape national policy3 Research and innovation platforms4 Power dynamics and representation in innovation platforms5 Monitoring innovation platforms 6 Innovation platforms for agricultural value chain development7 Communication in innovation platforms8 Developing innovation capacity through innovation platforms9 Linking action at different levels through innovation platforms10 Facilitating innovation platforms11 Innovation platforms to support natural resource management 12 Impact of innovation platformsThis document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence.         November 2013SustainabilityHow to ensure sustainability of the process? Often the platform itself does not have to be sustainable! Once capacity for innovation (Brief 8) is established in a system, the platform itself may not be required. It may be useful for certain types of platforms, such as higher-level policy-oriented platforms, or those that facilitate information exchange, to be sustained over time. Funding and support for such platforms needs to be found.ReferencesKlerkx, L., van Mierlo, B. and Leeuwis, C. 2012. Evolution of systems approaches to agricultural innovation: Concepts, analysis and interventions. In: Darnhofer, I., Gibbon, D. and Dedieu, B. (eds), Farming systems research into the 21st cen-tury: The new dynamic. Dordrecht: Springer: 457–83.Lundy, M.,Gottret, M.V. and R. Best. 2012. Linking research and development actors through learning alliances in agricultural innovation systems: An investment sourcebook. Washington, DC: World Bank. 344–348.Nederlof, S., Wongtschowski, M. and van der Lee, F.  2011. Put-ting heads together. Agricultural innovation platform in practice. Bulletin 396. Amsterdam: KIT.Pali, P. and Swaans, K. 2013. Guidelines for innovation platforms: Facilitation, monitoring and evaluation. ILRI Manual 8. Nairobi: ILRI. http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/27871 Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. This is one of a series of briefs to help guide the design and implementation of innovation platforms. A contribution to the CGIAR Humidtropics research program, the development of the briefs was led by the International Livestock Research Institute; the briefs draw on experiences of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, several CGIAR centres and partner organizations.

What are innovation platforms?

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What are innovation platforms?

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