Jekaterina Markow , Andrew F. Fieldsend , Susanne von Münchhausen , Anna Maria Häring
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引用次数: 2
Abstract
CONTEXT
Current research emphasises that agricultural innovation projects are influenced in multiple ways by the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) in which they operate. Yet little attention has been paid to the reverse direction of this relationship, i.e. how agricultural innovation projects affect AIS in the course of their innovative activities. Accordingly, there are currently no tools to measure such AIS spillovers from agricultural innovation projects.
OBJECTIVE
This paper shows that even where agricultural innovation projects have not been designed with the explicit aim of influencing AIS they can have spillovers on the AIS in which they operate. Based on this finding, it argues that designing agricultural innovation projects in a way that maximises such positive and reduces negative AIS spillovers would be a useful tool for strengthening agricultural innovation capacities in a particular territory or sector.
METHODS
Based on the concept of agricultural innovation projects as Organisational Innovation Systems (OIS) that are embedded in AIS, the paper develops an analytical framework for assessing spillovers of such projects on AIS and applies it to a case study of an Operational Group in the German Federal State of Hessen.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The case study shows that agricultural innovation projects may yield diverse spillovers on the AIS in which they operate. In addition to considering how agricultural innovation projects are shaped – constrained and/or enabled – by AIS, the research community on agricultural innovation should pay more attention to this side of the interrelation of AIS and agricultural innovation projects. Designing agricultural innovation projects responsibly so that spillovers on AIS are monitored can help to improve national or sectoral AIS.
SIGNIFICANCE
This paper points to an underexplored issue in research on agricultural innovation and, related to this, a thus far unused potential policy tool for improving national and sectoral AIS. It further develops the concept of innovation projects as OIS into an approach for assessing the effects of projects on AIS; an area of project assessment that until now has not been adequately covered.
期刊介绍:
Agricultural Systems is an international journal that deals with interactions - among the components of agricultural systems, among hierarchical levels of agricultural systems, between agricultural and other land use systems, and between agricultural systems and their natural, social and economic environments.
The scope includes the development and application of systems analysis methodologies in the following areas:
Systems approaches in the sustainable intensification of agriculture; pathways for sustainable intensification; crop-livestock integration; farm-level resource allocation; quantification of benefits and trade-offs at farm to landscape levels; integrative, participatory and dynamic modelling approaches for qualitative and quantitative assessments of agricultural systems and decision making;
The interactions between agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes; the multiple services of agricultural systems; food security and the environment;
Global change and adaptation science; transformational adaptations as driven by changes in climate, policy, values and attitudes influencing the design of farming systems;
Development and application of farming systems design tools and methods for impact, scenario and case study analysis; managing the complexities of dynamic agricultural systems; innovation systems and multi stakeholder arrangements that support or promote change and (or) inform policy decisions.