The Research Into Use (RIU) programme aims to accumulate and evaluate evidence to shape and share lessons on how best to enable innovation in the agricultural sector so as to achieve social and economic gains in diverse developing country settings:
sharing lessons to enable innovation in agriculture
Research Into Use
The RIU programme was revised following a series of reviews in late 2008 and early 2009. A new Programme Director and a new delivery team were appointed. Some changes also took place in the Africa Country Programme.
The whole RIU programme is set up as a series of investigations - we welcome comments, observations and feedback about all aspects of our work.
For RIU:
RIU is primarily a research programme. In undertaking our research, however, we also aim to put existing research products into use at scale.
This is not simply a question of how better use can be made of the large stockpile of agricultural research products that remain on the shelf - although that was one of the original rationales for establishing RIU. The research focus of RIU is the relationship between agricultural research and innovation - working towards identifying better processes to get research into use, rather than how to put specific research products into use.
This approach responds to extensive evidence that suggests that agricultural innovation is very often not the result of simply transferring research products to farmers, entrepreneurs and policy makers. More usually research promotes innovation only when it is embedded in the wide set of relationships and processes which help shape ideas and put them into use.
The key research objective for RIU is to tease out how a range of different approaches impact on making the best use of agricultural research as a policy instrument for development. This will involve looking at timing, settings, contexts, people, policies and institutions. In seeking answers to this complex question, RIU aims to provide guidance (but not a blueprint) to those seeking to make better use of agricultural research as a tool to bring about social and economic development, thereby helping to shape future practice and policy.
The whole RIU programme is set up as a series of investigations - we welcome comments, observations and feedback about all aspects of our work.
For RIU:
- Innovation means the application of new knowledge, or of existing knowledge used in new ways and contexts, to do something better
- Knowledge includes information, technologies, practices and policies
- Agriculture includes crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and forestry - from primary production, through processing, storage and input and output markets, to consumption
RIU is primarily a research programme. In undertaking our research, however, we also aim to put existing research products into use at scale.
This is not simply a question of how better use can be made of the large stockpile of agricultural research products that remain on the shelf - although that was one of the original rationales for establishing RIU. The research focus of RIU is the relationship between agricultural research and innovation - working towards identifying better processes to get research into use, rather than how to put specific research products into use.
This approach responds to extensive evidence that suggests that agricultural innovation is very often not the result of simply transferring research products to farmers, entrepreneurs and policy makers. More usually research promotes innovation only when it is embedded in the wide set of relationships and processes which help shape ideas and put them into use.
The key research objective for RIU is to tease out how a range of different approaches impact on making the best use of agricultural research as a policy instrument for development. This will involve looking at timing, settings, contexts, people, policies and institutions. In seeking answers to this complex question, RIU aims to provide guidance (but not a blueprint) to those seeking to make better use of agricultural research as a tool to bring about social and economic development, thereby helping to shape future practice and policy.
| Ian Maudlin, RIU Director, introduces Research Into Use, explains its aims and outlines the impacts the programme hopes to achieve. November 2009 (3:55) |  |
External resources
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Research into use: An experiment in innovation Impact at last Author: Andy Hall and Kumuda Dorai Source: LINK. March 2010 (350KB) |
