Building agricultural innovation capacity from the bottom up: Using spillover effects from projects to strengthen agricultural innovation systems

• Published in: Agricultural systems 2023-06, Vol.209, p.103670, Article 103670
• Main Authors: Markow, Jekaterina, Fieldsend, Andrew F., Münchhausen, Susanne von, Häring, Anna Maria
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural innovation project; Agricultural innovation system; Organisational innovation system; Project assessment; Spillover effect
• ISSN: 0308-521X; 1873-2267
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103670

Current research emphasises that agricultural innovation projects are influenced in multiple ways by the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) in which they operate. Yet little attention has been paid to the reverse direction of this relationship, i.e. how agricultural innovation projects affect AIS in the course of their innovative activities. Accordingly, there are currently no tools to measure such AIS spillovers from agricultural innovation projects. This paper shows that even where agricultural innovation projects have not been designed with the explicit aim of influencing AIS they can have spillovers on the AIS in which they operate. Based on this finding, it argues that designing agricultural innovation projects in a way that maximises such positive and reduces negative AIS spillovers would be a useful tool for strengthening agricultural innovation capacities in a particular territory or sector. Based on the concept of agricultural innovation projects as Organisational Innovation Systems (OIS) that are embedded in AIS, the paper develops an analytical framework for assessing spillovers of such projects on AIS and applies it to a case study of an Operational Group in the German Federal State of Hessen. The case study shows that agricultural innovation projects may yield diverse spillovers on the AIS in which they operate. In addition to considering how agricultural innovation projects are shaped – constrained and/or enabled – by AIS, the research community on agricultural innovation should pay more attention to this side of the interrelation of AIS and agricultural innovation projects. Designing agricultural innovation projects responsibly so that spillovers on AIS are monitored can help to improve national or sectoral AIS. This paper points to an underexplored issue in research on agricultural innovation and, related to this, a thus far unused potential policy tool for improving national and sectoral AIS. It further develops the concept of innovation projects as OIS into an approach for assessing the effects of projects on AIS; an area of project assessment that until now has not been adequately covered. [Display omitted] •Agricultural innovation projects may have spillover effects on the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) they operate in.•We develop a heuristic framework for assessing such AIS spillovers and apply it to a case study of an innovation project.•We find that the project yielded several effects on the AIS as spillovers from its innov