Virtues and limits of competitive funds to finance research and innovation: the case of Mexican agriculture

Vera–Cruz, Alexandre O.; Dutrénit, Gabriela; Martínez, Griselda; Torres-Vargas, Arturo; Ekboir, Javier M.

doi:10.3152/030234208x345943

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The contract delegation, a recent incarnation of incentive-based delegation, not only makes scientists responsive to the practice domain but also increase their accountability to the funding agency under a formal contract. Examples of contract-based delegation include alternative, yet competitive, funding mechanisms, such as contract research and commissioned papers (Vera-Cruz et al 2008, Birdsall et al 2010. Two other modifications of competitive grant allocation mechanisms are advance market commitments and proportional prizes.…”

Section: Networkmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…For regular scholars, considering the local contexts such as in Nepal, the grant administer can experiment with 30% weight to the CVs of team members and 70% weight to the technical quality of the proposals because most of the challenges in project implementation in Nepal had been due to the lack of the capacity of the project team to implement the approved project. This can serve as a mechanism of merit review in addition to the conventional peer review (Vera-Cruz et al 2008).…”

Section: Capacity Development To Improve Incentive-based Competitive mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unfolding the challenges of delegating research services for innovation and entrepreneurship in smallholder agriculture

Pant

Pant²

2011

Knowledge Management for Development Journal

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In recent decades competitive research grants are promoted in low-income countries to delegate public provisioning of research services, often considering this approach as an effective way to create knowledge, to generate innovation, to increase aid effectiveness and to enhance overall development impacts. However, as with any other mechanisms of funding, the effectiveness of competitive research funding varies in terms of the delegation of research execution along the continuum of researchers' total freedom to funding agencies' absolute direction. A case study of decade-long Nepalese experience shows that disbursing competitive research grants to promote multi-stakeholder collaboration, as often expected under the pluralist realm, is paradoxical with a focus on either curiosity-oriented or user-inspired research, particularly in low-income countries where stakeholders are becoming critically consciousness of lasting structural inequalities. The paper concludes that there is need first to reform the grant administration procedure for underrepresented communities of scholars, and, second, to develop the capacity of grant administrators as well as researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs to collectively address the dialectics of delegating research and other innovation services. This can be done by simplifying fund allocation procedure and diversifying the funding mechanisms, to make funds available for the following purpose: (1) curiosity-oriented agricultural science research of strategic importance; (2) applied interdisciplinary research for development problem-solving; and (3) collaborative research for innovation generation and small enterprise development. IntroductionIn recent decades, donor agencies as well as recipient governments have emphasized competitive research funding to facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration yet with an implicit assumption that the research is the main source of innovation and entrepreneurship, and this mechanism of public funding can serve as a panacea to enhance aid effectiveness, creating lasting development impacts. Although this narrow perspective on innovation have been challenged by the recent application of innovation systems thinking to address the inherent complexity of international development, research financing is one of the least explored areas (Hall et al. 2001, World Bank 2006, Hall et al. 2009). We agree that increasing aid effectiveness can have leverage in the international development in general and in the livelihoods of vulnerable people in particular, but separating funding and provisioning roles through delegation of research services that have been conventionally provided by the state is a dialectical process. The process of handing over research services without the voice of disadvantaged stakeholders can limit development impacts.

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Section: Networkmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Capacity Development To Improve Incentive-based Competitive mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unfolding the challenges of delegating research services for innovation and entrepreneurship in smallholder agriculture

Pant

Pant²

2011

Knowledge Management for Development Journal

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“…The authors of this work consider that government‐funded IIO in the context of Mexico, a developing country, ought to fulfill their role in a different way than that of farmer‐funded IIO in a developed country. With this in mind, this article builds upon the general contributions on the role of IIOs, summarized by Howells (); the works related to the agricultural sector, particularly those of Klerkx and Leeuwis (), and evidence resulting from previous case studies of the PF (Ekboir & Vera‐Cruz, ; Ekboir et al., ; Rivera, Dutrénit, Ekboir, Sampedro, & Vera‐Cruz, ; Vera‐Cruz, Dutrénit, Ekboir, Martínez, & Torres‐Vargas, ). The ideas were nourished by the particularities of the innovation in the segment of small farmers of the agricultural sector in developing countries (Biggs, ; Byerlee et al., ; Favareto, ; Paz, ; Sims & Kienzle, ).…”

Section: A Different Approach To the Innovation Intermediary Organizamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this line, each PF submits a call for proposals, based on demands suggested by the PSs operating in the state. Researchers, technological services suppliers, and consultants apply project proposals, and there is a peer‐review process of the proposals (Vera‐Cruz et al., ).…”

Section: The Chiapas Produce Foundations As An Innovation Intermediarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functions of the Intermediary Organizations for Agricultural Innovation inMexico: TheChiapas Produce Foundation

Dutrénit

Rocha-Lackiz

Vera–Cruz

2012

Review of Policy Research

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Innovation intermediary organizations (IIOs) may build bridges between the demand and supply of knowledge. The understanding concerning the scope and functions of these intermediaries in the case of the agricultural sector is scarce, particularly for developing countries. The aim of this article is to discuss the functions played by IIOs operating in the segment of small farmers in the agricultural sector in the context of a developing country. The analysis allows extracting policy implications having in mind small farmers with different economic conditions and levels of innovativeness. This article uses a case study methodology. The main sources of information are interviews with members of the board and staff of the Produce Foundation, responsible for managing public resources to promote innovation processes in the agriculture sector in a specific state, Chiapas, as well as with farmers, technological suppliers, and researchers in this state.

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“…The reduction of economic growth in the agricultural sector has coincided with the decline of funding from commercial and development banks. Regarding this issue, Vera-Cruz et al (2008) examined the advantages and limitations of competitive funds to finance research projects and technological innovation in the Mexican countryside. On the other hand, CEPAL (2009) showed that the deterioration in the financial access conditions has negatively affected agricultural activities in both domestic and foreign markets since 2008.…”

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confidence: 99%

The impact of banking and external sectors on Mexican agriculture in the period 1995-2015

2018

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Mexican agricultural production has been characterised by a lack of dynamism in recent years and is losing ground in terms of GDP. This may reflect the lack of funding from commercial and development banks. This research aims at studying the dynamics of the agriculture sector through econometric analysis using Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and Vector Error Correction (VEC) models in order to examine the short- and long-run relationships among agricultural production, terms of trade (ratio of agricultural prices and general price level), agricultural exports and lending from commercial and development banks. The main empirical findings, contrary to what was expected, is that even though there was a precarious level of funding from the banking sector, credit from commercial banking was higher than that from development banking in the last decades. Further, relative prices were found to have a negative relationship with agricultural exports, showing the importance of the external sector in agriculture.

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Virtues and limits of competitive funds to finance research and innovation: the case of Mexican agriculture

Cited by 15 publications

References 19 publications

Unfolding the challenges of delegating research services for innovation and entrepreneurship in smallholder agriculture

Unfolding the challenges of delegating research services for innovation and entrepreneurship in smallholder agriculture

Functions of the Intermediary Organizations for Agricultural Innovation inMexico: TheChiapas Produce Foundation

The impact of banking and external sectors on Mexican agriculture in the period 1995-2015

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