Looking at local learning capacity and systems of relations can help to understand the potential to develop innovation within a specific context. This work contributes to the definition of new actors who are developing innovation for sustainability in rural areas. The study focuses on the knowledge systems of farmers who are applying alternative breeding strategies: it uses a network approach to explore the knowledge system in which individual farmers are embedded in order to understand their specific relational features.
In 2011, the Platform for African European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD) launched the Users-led Process (ULP) to better articulate users’ needs in a multi-stakeholder research and innovation (R&I) partnership. The ULP comprises six critical steps: (1) Identification of a federating theme; (2) Desk review; (3) Introduction workshop; (4) Multi-stakeholder research question inception workshop; (5) Concept note development; (6) Full proposal development.
En 2011, la Plateforme pour un partenariat Afrique-Europe dans le domaine de la recherche agricole pour le développement (Platform for African European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development, PAEPARD) a lancé le processus guidé par les utilisateurs (PGU) afin de mieux intégrer leurs besoins dans un partenariat multiacteurs pour la recherche et l’innovation (R&I).
According to the literature on regime transition, niches are sources of innovation that may lead to the transformation of the dominant regime, if processes at other level of the system – the landscape and the mainstream regime - are supportive. A focus on actors involved in the transition process and the analysis of their specific role in knowledge networks can help assessing the robustness of a specific niche and its growth potential. Knowledge systems, and in particular the dynamics of local and expert knowledge, have in fact a key role in innovation models.
According to the literature on regime tran-sition, niches are sources of innovation that may lead to the transformation of the dominant regime, if pro-cesses at other level of the system –the landscape and the mainstream regime -are supportive. A focus on actors involved in the transition process and the analysis of their specific role in knowledge networks can help assessing the robustness of a specific niche and its growth potential. Knowledge systems, and in particular the dynamics of local and expert knowledge, have in fact a key role in innovation mod-els.