Innovation for Development of the potato crop: The Papa Andina Experience

Innovation for Development: The Papa Andina Experience 

Editors: André Devaux, Miguel Ordinola and Douglas Horton

© International Potato Center (CIP), 2011 

416 pages

Over the years, international agricultural research organizations have used a number of approaches to link research more effectively with development and the needs of the poor. These approaches have included extension and outreach programs, cropping and farming systems research, participatory plant breeding, integrated natural resource management, networking, and partnership, among others (Scoones and Thompson, 2009). 

Recently, research centers have experimented with innovation systems approaches that shift attention from increasing the supply of new technology to facilitating innovation processes in which new solutions to technical and institutional problems are co-produced by diverse stakeholders in interactive learning processes.

Various factors can trigger innovation, including changes in policies, markets, and technology. Attitudes, habits, norms, and institutional structures determine how individuals and organizations respond to such triggers. Applying innovation system concepts in practice to link research more effectively with action, has proven challenging (Hall, 2009), and there are few well-documented cases of successful application of innovation system approaches. 

The papers presented in this book show how Papa Andina grappled with fundamental issues of linking research with action, how it interpreted and applied concepts and thinking from innovation systems and such related areas as knowledge management and sustainability science, and the results that were obtained.