The challenges of developing innovation capacity for a New Rural Economy Innovation, as a driver of social and economic change, can be of particular significance in the rural sector of developing countries: it is where most of the poor live; it is where major environmental resources are located; and it is where the livelihoods of the most vulnerable communities are interlinked - for better or worse - to rapid technological and market changes that are transforming enterprises and services. Innovation was once thought of as a research driven process. It is now recognised as an interactive process incorporating a much broader range of activities, actors, practices and policies and contexts. Together these different elements enable the creative use of both new and existing knowledge, information and technology. Since this involves the interaction of many actors with different and competing agendas, governance issues need to be addressed if innovation is going to lead socially desirable outcomes such as poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. While there is no consensus on the precise nature of innovation capacity, its broad features include a combination of (i) scientific, entrepreneurial, managerial and other skills and knowledge; (ii) partnerships, alliances and networks linking different sources of knowledge and different areas of social and economic activity; (iii) routines, organisational culture, and traditional practices that pattern the propensity to innovate; (iv) clusters of supportive policies and other incentives, governance structures and the nature of the policy process; and (v) the ability to continuously learn how to use knowledge more effectively. Within the rural sector however, science, technology and innovation policy interventions have traditionally been narrowly focused on agricultural development. Technology and other forms of knowledge upgrading of related economic activities - such as food processing, forest products, and rural transport - have received little emphasis in rural development policy, yet are a potentially important way of contributing to poverty reduction and sustainable development. With the growing diversification of rural livelihood options into non-farm activities and with the increasing interconnectedness of rural areas and activities to the global environment, a New Rural Economy is emerging. This is bringing with it greater pressures to innovate in response to, for instance, rapidly changing patterns of competition, market preferences and standards. It also brings challenges and opportunities arising from new technology and knowledge in all areas of economic and social activity globally. The New Rural Economy is also characterised by a growing interconnectedness and knowledge convergence among different areas of economic and social activity. For example, the interconnection of agriculture, food-processing and health, and the knowledge convergence arising from generic scientific knowledge such as gene technology, and generic process knowledge such as governance approaches and learning practices. The unique characteristics of the New Rural Economy raise unexplored questions about the nature of rural innovation capacity and the challenges this brings to policy design and implementation. These challenges concern a need to create (i) collective capacity combining expertise from different science, technology and entrepreneurial domains (agriculture, health, communication, banking, etc.); (ii) dynamic, evolutionary capacity able to respond to rapidly changing contexts (technical, market, policy, political and social); and (iii) capacity to recognise and address the challenges and opportunities emanating from the interconnectedness and knowledge convergence of different spheres of rural activity. Our research projects tackle these broad questions.
Ongoing research projects Building innovation capacity: Adapting and responding to drought and livestock disease emergencies Changing to Innovate: recent institutional developments in international centres of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research Enhancing innovation capacity: Process monitoring, policy dialogue and learning Innovation capacity for New Agriculture: A case study of response capacities to cope with evolving markets, norms and standards in the livestock sector in Kenya and Ethiopia New Insights in Promoting Rural Innovation: Learning from Civil Society Organizations Policies to Strengthen the Capacity of Agricultural Innovation Systems in Developing Countries Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: Tools and Options for Strengthening Agricultural Innovation System Capacity Institutions for poverty reduction: understanding and enabling institutional changes that promote pro-poor innovation Institutional strategies to improve producers' and governments' response capacity in Southeast Asia 's dynamic livestock markets
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