Farmer First Revisited 12 – 14 December 2007 at the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK Presentation, Theme 3a, Institutionalising participation in large, public R&D organisations Rapporteur’s summary of the discussion

Institutionalization of participation in large public R&D organizations

Taking stock Pockets of work on participatory approaches and innovations work (FAO, ILRI, CIMMYT, China etc) Mainly growing informal networks of groups of people questioning and going against the status quo –“Dissidents within the system” –“Sub communities” –“Outside the mainstream agenda” –“Pushing against” Project orientation of work on participatory work Good lessons-but systems becoming more inflexible-No learning especially in the CG

Taking stock Why has this grown –Champions, including funding champions –In china, balance between basic and applied research (about 60% applied) –Incentives and recognition for impact orientation as a result of the socio-political nature of agricultural research

Issues Incentives –Current incentive systems do not take into account impact orientation, participation, partnership building –Evaluation systems-external and internal (e.g within the CG) –Existing criteria of what is good science Structural issues –Imbalance between upstream push vs downstream impacts

Role of individuals- Leadership in institutionalization Institutionalization vs maintaining quality –As institutionalization takes place, it will require formal and informal mechanisms for maintaining quality of application vs checking participatory boxes Intellectualization vs mutual learning and application Issues

How can we keep momentum (how can we practice what we are preaching to others)- Integrity in our internal systems Donor Orientation to participatory approaches e.g DFID Coordinated research and donor approach to learn from the past and existing participatory research work