Discussion paper 01
Comments on this document

Research Into Use: Investigating the relationship between agricultural research and innovation Authors: Andy Hall, Jeroen Dijkman and Rasheed Sulaiman V July 2010 (PDF 200KB)

Comment from	Lionel Dabbadie CIRAD
Date submitted	5 September 2010

Dear RIU,

First of all, I would like to say that RIU work is a very important source of inspiration and my knowledge of your work is not limited to these two papers, although I also have to admit I don't yet dominate your huge production of documents.

I just would like to give some feedback on the first document (relationship between agricultural research and innovation). If I were to synthesize my feeling in two ideas after reading it, I would say it is one of the best analysis I know on this strategic subject, but the integration of concepts and ideas (including your own, expressed in other papers) is not yet optimal. The way you present it gives the feeling that it is only based on some kind of a meta-analysis of many past case studies, whereas it is obvious it is also clearly backed by a strong theoretical framework (for example, you keep on insisting on concepts that are key elements of the Actor-Network Theory). As a result, some recommendations appear a little bit artificial (e.g. distinction between orchestrated trajectory and SNM etc.).

It is my feeling that combining learnings from past studies with a more theoretical background could help strengthen your analytical framework by evidencing and clarifying the relationship between continuously evolving more or less complex networks and discrete systems in which innovation is desirable and achievable through the analytical framework you propose.

This might also permit to gain from the complex system analysis that you describe very well in another document but that lacks in this one, in my opinion.

Best regards
Lionel