Transforming Impact Assessment: Beginning the Quiet Revolution of Institutional Learning and Change

Watts, Jamie; Horton, Douglas; Douthwaite, Boru; Rovere, Roberto La; Thiele, Graham; Prasad, C. Shambu; Staver, Charles

doi:10.1017/s0014479707005960

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Stakeholder commitment is crucial in innovation settings to promote learning processes that bring about better social outcomes [38,41,50,78]. Specific tools are needed to satisfy the needs of the stakeholders, identify the underlying cause of the problem and embed these in the context of the stakeholder.…”

Section: Co-creation and Design In Order To Respond To The Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Numerous findings point out that the social and ecological impacts of the underlying cause must be addressed, and not only the economic impact, to explore on the social issues. This can be addressed by using exploratory analysis to explicitly answer the expectations of stakeholders [8,9,43,49,62,68,78,79]. These methods pinpoint the social demands of the stakeholders by considering their specific needs, ideas and thinking continuously as the project evolves.…”

Section: Co-creation and Design In Order To Respond To The Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Enhancing Rural Innovation and Sustainability Through Impact Assessment: A Review of Methods and Tools

2020

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Assessing impacts in innovation contexts/settings with the aim of fostering sustainability requires tackling complex issues. Literature shows that key sources of this complexity relate to the need to integrate the local context; identify the underlying problems; engage key stakeholders; and reflect on their feedback throughout the innovation process. A systematic literature review on innovation impact assessment reveals that social impacts have been the most studied, thus, where promising methods and tools were used. Nevertheless, there are many unresolved issues beyond assessing social impacts in innovation processes. Literature highlights that building on co-creating innovation processes that respond to stakeholders’ real needs and context, and adapting to changing circumstances by integrating timely feedback from stakeholders are two critical challenges calling for a systems thinking approach. This study proposes Developmental Evaluation (DE) as a systemic approach to evaluation which supports adaptive development in complex environments and that adds value by integrating continuous feedback from diverse stakeholders. As a non-prescriptive evaluation approach in terms of methods and tools, DE can provide meaningful guidance to use diverse methods and tools in furthering ongoing development and adaptation in innovation processes by linking the evaluation activities—impact assessment among them—with the DE principles that are situational, adaptive and continuously responsive.

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Section: Co-creation and Design In Order To Respond To The Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Co-creation and Design In Order To Respond To The Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Rural Innovation and Sustainability Through Impact Assessment: A Review of Methods and Tools

2020

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“…First, because most performance-based funding systems have been introduced since 2000, allowing sufficient time for the RIA approaches to evolve and literature to be published. Secondly, in 2008 two key publications on RIA of agricultural research triggered the topic: Kelley, et al (38) published the lessons learned from the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment of CGIAR; Watts, et al (39) summarized several central pitfalls of impact assessment concerning agricultural research. We took these publications as a starting point for the literature search.…”

Section: Literature Searchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research impact assessment in agriculture—A review of approaches and impact areas

Weißhuhn

Helming

Ferretti

2017

Research Evaluation

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Research has a role to play in society's endeavour for sustainable development. This is particularly true for agricultural research, since agriculture is at the nexus between numerous sustainable development goals. Yet, generally accepted methods for linking research outcomes to sustainability impacts are missing. We conducted a review of scientific literature to analyse how impacts of agricultural research were assessed and what types of impacts were covered. A total of 171 papers published between 2008 and 2016 were reviewed. Our analytical framework covered three categories: (1) the assessment level of research (policy, programme, organization, project, technology, or other); (2) the type of assessment method (conceptual, qualitative, or quantitative); and (3) the impact areas (economic, social, environmental, or sustainability). The analysis revealed that most papers (56%) addressed economic impacts, such as cost-effectiveness of research funding or macroeconomic effects. In total, 42% analysed social impacts, like food security or aspects of equity. Very few papers (2%) examined environmental impacts, such as climate effects or ecosystem change. Only one paper considered all three sustainability dimensions. We found a majority of papers assessing research impacts at the level of technologies, particularly for economic impacts. There was a tendency of preferring quantitative methods for economic impacts, and qualitative methods for social impacts. The most striking finding was the 'blind eye' towards environmental and sustainability implications in research impact assessments. Efforts have to be made to close this gap and to develop integrated research assessment approaches, such as those available for policy impact assessments.

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“…We study this in the context of international AR4D, which efficiency in terms of fostering innovation using participatory and collaborative approaches has been object of reform and study over time (e.g. Clark et al , 2011; De Janvry and Kassam, 2004; Hall et al , 2003; Hellin et al , 2008; Horton, 1998; Horton and Mackay, 2003; Santamaría Guerra, 2003; Watts et al , 2008). Several authors have denoted a history of discontinuity in terms of applying and institutionalising participatory approaches (Kristjanson et al , 2009; Thiele et al , 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovation Platforms: Experiences With Their Institutional Embedding in Agricultural Research for Development

et al. 2015

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SUMMARYInnovation Platforms (IPs) are seen as a promising vehicle to foster a paradigm shift in agricultural research for development (AR4D). By facilitating interaction, negotiation and collective action between farmers, researchers and other stakeholders, IPs can contribute to more integrated, systemic innovation that is essential for achieving agricultural development impacts. However, successful implementation of IPs requires institutional change within AR4D establishments. The objective of this paper is to reflect on the implementation and institutionalisation of IPs in present AR4D programmes. We use experiences from sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate how the adoption and adaptation of IPs creates both opportunities and challenges that influence platform performance and impact. Niche-regime theory is used to understand challenges, and anticipate on how to deal with them. A key concern is whether IPs in AR4D challenge or reinforce existing technology-oriented agricultural innovation paradigms. For example, stakeholder representation, facilitation and institutional embedding determine to a large extent whether the IP can strengthen systemic capacity to innovate that can lead to real paradigm change, or are merely 'old wine in new bottles' and a continuation of 'business as usual'. Institutional embedding of IPs and -more broadlythe transition from technology-oriented to system-oriented AR4D approaches requires structural changes in organisational mandates, incentives, procedures and funding, as well as investments in exchange of experiences, learning and capacity development.

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Transforming Impact Assessment: Beginning the Quiet Revolution of Institutional Learning and Change

Cited by 14 publications

References 11 publications

Enhancing Rural Innovation and Sustainability Through Impact Assessment: A Review of Methods and Tools

Enhancing Rural Innovation and Sustainability Through Impact Assessment: A Review of Methods and Tools

Research impact assessment in agriculture—A review of approaches and impact areas

Innovation Platforms: Experiences With Their Institutional Embedding in Agricultural Research for Development

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