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Boosting the productivity of smallholder farming systems continues to be a major need in Africa. Challenges relating to how to improve irrigation are multi‐factor and multisectoral, and they involve a broad range of actors who must interact to reach decisions collectively. We provide a systematic reflection on findings from the research project EAU4Food, which adopted a transdisciplinary approach to irrigation for food security research in five case studies in Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, South Africa and Tunisia. The EAU4Food experiences emphasize that actual innovation at irrigated smallholder farm level remains limited without sufficient improvement of the enabling environment and taking note of the wider political economy environment. Most project partners felt at the end of the project that the transdisciplinary approach has indeed enriched the research process by providing different and multiple insights from actors outside the academic field. Local capacity to facilitate transdisciplinary research and engagement with practitioners was developed and could support the continuation and scaling up of the approach. Future projects may benefit from a longer time frame to allow for deeper exchange of lessons learned among different stakeholders and a dedicated effort to analyse possible improvements of the enabling environment from the beginning of the research process. © 2020 The Authors. Irrigation and Drainage published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Commission for Irrigation and Drainage

The role of smallholder farmers in multi‐stakeholder innovation platforms and thus in the innovation process that these platforms facilitate is typically limited. The EAU4Food project, aimed at increasing food production in irrigation schemes in Africa through improved farming strategies, used a platform design inspired by the community of practice (CoP) concept, which opened up space for farmers' interactive learning and enabled their active participation in the innovation process. In this article we present examples of how this approach has been implemented in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tunisia. We analyse the level of farmers' participation that was achieved at different stages of the implementation process, namely: deciding how to set up the CoP, identifying innovation needs and conducting the experiment. Among different strategies deployed by EAU4Food researchers, working with dialogue groups, engaging farmers in data interpretation and passing the responsibility over elements of the research process to farmers, proved to be the most effective in strengthening farmers' involvement. The use of a simulation game to test innovations also showed promising results and should be explored further. The attitude of researchers proved to be an important factor in achieving a high level of farmers' engagement in the project. Copyright © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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