Dagli and Hambly Odame contribute a paper on the state of agricultural innovation studies at EU-SPRI 2019
‘There is no single way of benefitting from technological change,’ said Winifredo Dagli, a Rural Studies PhD student, in his presentation at the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation (EU-SPRI) last June 5, 2019 at the Centro Congressi Frentani in Rome, Italy. Dagli co-authored the paper titled “Innovation Research on Agriculture and Climate Change: A Systematic Review of Evidence” with SEDRD’s Professor of Capacity Development and Extension, Helen Hambly Odame. The volume of book of abstracts and presentations can also be found on the EU-SPRI website.
One of the compelling findings of the systematic literature review challenges the widely accepted notion that farming systems research paradigms evolved in phases over time. “What these articles are telling us,”Dagli explained, “is that the linear model of innovation persists and co-exists with complex systems-oriented innovation research in agriculture.” Despite the influence of complex adaptive systems thinking over agricultural innovation research, Dagli and Hambly Odame noticed that power relations and equity issues have rarely been addressed in most of the innovation studies that they reviewed. This is an area of concern especially when climate change adaptation requires not just incremental improvements in agricultural products and farm practices but also radical and transformative changes at the level of policies and institutions.
With the theme, ‘Science, Technology, and Innovation Policies for Sustainable Development,’ the EU-SPRI gathered more than a hundred scholars of innovation studies from Europe and elsewhere to share and discuss latest trends and issues in the interdisciplinary field of innovation studies and the ways in which the discipline can better support the global implementation of Sustainable Development Goals.
Photo above: Winfred Dagli of SEDRD (right) together with Sofie Sandin (left), a PhD candidate at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) in Sweden, and Adrian Ely (center) of Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU)- University of Sussex during the poster session at EU-SPRI 2019.