As new Megaprograms were being finalized, research defined, new partnerships forged for a new more impactful agriculture research agenda… as the texture, the vital structure of the new CGIAR was being defined it became apparent that communication and knowledge sharing related issues were “missing in action”…. but not everywhere… signs that there was a growing awareness of the value of knowledge sharing in research became apparent… the heads of communication of the various CGIAR centers started to make noise around the fact communication and knowledge sharing were being neglected… so these topics made it back to the “must be there” list in a Megaprogram.
In the new CGIAR, Centres and Megaprograms will be operating in a complex arrangement of interlocking partners and interests, at all levels: international, regional, national and local. At the interface of research and development we need to generate new knowledge while finding effective ways of linking that knowledge with action to produce clear impact. Much of this development work will be done with and by our partners.
Strategically targeted communications and knowledge-sharing mechanisms will be vital in delivering the kinds of sustainable, large-scale improvements in human and ecological well-being we are seeking.
To operate effectively, there will have to be very efficient mechanisms of communication established, to allow knowledge to flow freely throughout the system we are creating, in particular to meet the communications requirements of our partners and collaborators.
But how would we formulate this in our Megaprograms?
I want to share with you what Warwick Easdown, from AVRDC- The World Vegetable Center included in his write up about the issue of communication and knowledge sharing as a contribution to a Megaprogram he has been developing.
I hope Warwick’s wisdom serves as an inspiration to the many out there who are working on Megaprograms. And if any of you out there has something to share that can indeed help others… please come forward, the platform of this blog is open to you all!
“Knowledge management is a broad term covering the social and technical processes that support communication and information management in organizations. The world is undergoing profound economic, technological and social changes, and science communication and information use is changing rapidly as more multidisciplinary teams address more complex problems. There are several major reasons why international agricultural research centers (IARCs) urgently need to improve their knowledge management to remain relevant:
Knowledge Sharing in Research Process cycle
Knowledge management in agricultural research
The use of Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in combination with innovative knowledge sharing methods and tools provide new opportunities for a more effective way of doing agricultural research for development. This can change both the work of individual research teams and that of research institutions as a whole.
At the surface level the work of the international agricultural research centers involves many actors in a series of activities such as laboratory research, participatory research, action learning, mentoring, internships, group training, production of learning materials, archiving and accessing information. This work results in international public goods such as new scientific and technological knowledge, agricultural research products and services, and increased individual and organizational capacities to innovate.
At a more fundamental level there are three main processes going on in the creation and delivery of these international public goods; learning, capacity strengthening and information sharing. Making these processes more effective is the work of knowledge management and is essential to creating a high performing consortium of international agricultural research centers. It depends on the use of innovative social processes and an effective and efficient IT infrastructure.
Knowledge management for research teams
The research process that involves research teams can be seen as involving six steps:
The role of knowledge sharing in this cyclical process is shown in the diagram below:
A wide range of innovative information sharing, learning and capacity strengthening activities have been developed and trialed within the CGIAR and could help to strengthen each stage in the research process in a new consortium of IARCs and partners working on each megaprogram. Many of these have been developed by the CGIAR ICT-KM team (http://ictkm.cgiar.org/index.php) and are documented with the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit (http://www.kstoolkit.org/) that contains more than 80 tools and methods to enhance face-to-face and virtual participation. These have been implemented by groups such as the Facilitating Impact Team at CIAT (http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/dapablogs/dapa-impact/?page_id=29) that encourages the use of a wide range of innovative approaches to learning and information sharing.
Examples that research teams may use include the following:
1. Identification of research problem, and 2. Design of research
Participatory research planning approaches can be used for identifying research problems as well as designing research. Many agricultural problems are increasingly complex and the research questions cannot not be clearly defined, let alone the research approaches. They require a more exploratory and iterative approach to research problem identification and research design. Appropriate tools may include Participatory Impact Pathways analysis (PIPA), Outcome Mapping, Social Network Analysis or Learning Alliances.
3. Research activities
In addition to well known research approaches those to facilitate communication. learning and information sharing within the research team and its collaborators can also include online collaboration tools like wikis; social media like blogs, twitter; participatory video, facilitated e-consultations and structured mentoring.
4. Production of research outputs
Beyond the production of traditional research papers there are many more effective ways of reaching partners and stakeholders. These may involve approaches such as online publishing, online collaborative documentation or social media.
5. Dissemination of research results
Many innovative ways of extending research results have been developed by agricultural extension services over the last century. In addition to traditional face to face field days, farmer field schools or radio newer approaches involve more diverse media such participatory video, mobile phones and more indirect means of communicating innovations such as storytelling, impact narratives or innovation histories.
6. Planning future research
Many of the approaches used in the identification of research problems may also be used in brainstorming, investigative consultations or datamining to plan future research.
Not all of these approaches may be socially acceptable due to their unfamiliarity to all parties or technically feasible due to a lack of connectivity between participants
Knowledge management for research organizations
Research organizations do many of the same things as smaller research teams, but they also conduct learning, capacity strengthening and information sharing at a broader level, and over a longer period than individual research projects. These broader supportive activities include:
Innovative knowledge management processes can also support research at this broader institutional level. Many of the tools that are useful to research teams can also be applied at the institutional level, but there are also some unique approaches that can be used:
Partnership and networking
Research into partnering can help to inform the best ways to manage partnerships. Past work by CIP for example has found that organizational partnerships tend to be dynamic and often evolve from less to more formal arrangements. Successful partnerships tend to share a common vision and purpose, with realistically defined goals and are open about resource distribution, sharing responsibilities to help build trust. Shared websites, online collaboration tools like blogs, social media and wikis can help to build such networks and strengthen partnerships.
Institutional strengthening and capacity building
Knowledge management depends on a good technical IT infrastructure and staff who are familiar with innovative uses of it. One of the major institutional strengthening roles of research institutions can therefore be to ensure that there is adequate investment in ICTs. Internet broadband connectivity must be available along with the necessary hardware and staff need to be trained in the use of application to integrate and manage online content. This can also involve facilitating changes in organizational priorities and culture.
Capacity building is not just having a training program but helping the organization or its partners to see their role differently and to be able to respond to challenges more innovatively and on a more equal footing. Capacity building is a continuous two-way process between partners. It can require improved social skills to maintain including better facilitation of strategic exercises; team building and teamwork exercises, mentoring in information sharing and learning, as well as Web based courses, and face to face training as well as the use of diverse media in training and workshops.
Information, knowledge, technology exchange
As the quantity of information grows it becomes more important to integrate information collections and provide more effective means of publishing it quickly, reducing overlaps and helping users to find the information they need quickly. The CIARD initiative (Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development) is an attempt to integrate information collections to make it easier for users to find what they need. The Open Access initiative provides alternative options for publishing scientific work that will preserve quality, but be more generally accessible than expensive journals. The AAA initiative aims to improve the Availability, Accessibility and Applicability of CGIAR research outputs. Information is a key international good produced by the IARCs and improving access to it and its effective use is key measure of the centers’ performance.
Awareness & Advocacy
Useful agricultural products and information and skilled social processes are of no value if no-one uses them. IARCs need to promote what they do and what they can provide as there are now many more development priorities and organizations competing for the attention of donors and partners. Greater use of innovative web tools is needed to promote the cause of agricultural development to donors. Improved internet access is also allowing innovative ways of connecting rural communities with development partners around the world. More diverse ways of connecting to partners and clients who will apply the innovations discovered are also needed, including radio, video, television, print media and the internet. Extension systems are often weak in the countries in which IARCs work, but increasingly donors want to see impact and this requires much greater attention to improving awareness and advocacy activities in conjunction with end users.”
Note: In this case I used Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing interchangeably.
Thank you Warwick for allowing the use of your text!
The CGIAR's first Chief Information Officer is hosted by Bioversity International in Rome, Italy.
All content created by ICT-KM is published under a Creative Commons 3.0 license. You are free to share, republish or remix so long as you attribute ICT-KM clearly as the original source.
Thanks Enrica for sharing this timely post.
In addition to the steps outlined, we may want to highlight three further knowledge sharing aspects of the mega programs:
1. First, stakeholder engagement and mapping. One of the most critical elements in the planned Mega Programs is to identify and engage with multiple actors and stakeholders from design through to planning. Good knowledge sharing and communication can add much value to the mapping and engaging of the ‘right’ partners throughout a research project or program.
It is particularly important in the increasingly-popular value chain and innovation system approaches that we are able to catalyze the creation, sharing and use of the knowledge of ALL the actors involved in an issue or problem. For this we will need a diverse mix of multi-directional, inclusive, cross-platform tools and approaches. The many stakeholder engagement and consultation processes now taking place across the CGIAR point to the key role that this stakeholder communication plays in mega program design.
2. The second is the whole area of learning, monitoring, and evaluation – at project, program and organizational levels. This seems to be missing in this schema. The new Mega Programs aim to do different research, and to do it differently in and through multi-actor partnerships. There are also growing demands, from donors not the least, for evidence of results, changes, impacts, and money well-spent. What are some of the knowledge sharing approaches and tools we can use to support this work?
3. Third, we need to look more closely at some of the specific characteristics of the new mega programs.
The ‘steps’ in your posting seem to be directed at an ‘institutional’ based research project/program. For the mega programs, these steps may be essentially the same, but they will be in a radically changing research and communications landscape that will bring radically different knowledge challenges and opportunities to us all.
As mentioned above, many mega programs seem to focus on value chains or they will work through innovation systems/platforms. These approaches are explicitly multi-stakeholder and call for excellent communications and knowledge sharing among diverse groups not always used to communicating with each other, among groups with very different technological ‘bandwidth’, and with different cultures regarding science and development. We need some innovation here.
They will be governed by performance contracts, calling for strong learning, M&E, and reporting systems.
The draft Humid Tropics Mega Program proposal (http://humidtropics.org/) says it will generate local public goods as well as international public goods. The Livestock-Fish proposal (http://livestockfish.wordpress.com/) talks of a balance between the development of specific local value chains and more general technology generation activities. It is a challenge for our communication and knowledge sharing to ensure that this knowledge is locally and globally accessible and that it flows from local to global and global to local.
The Mega Programs also call for CGIAR centers and partners to work in much more coordinated, coherent, and collaborative modes – which calls for very efficient ‘network’ communication, learning, and knowledge/information sharing among the groups involved.
We are likely to need different and enhanced ‘back office’ info and comms capabilities (at system, mega progam, and center levels) that can cross existing professional and administrative boundaries. People in mega programs may often be communicating across the globe, from policy to grassroots, with a wider range of partners than at present.
People doing information, knowledge, ICT and communication work – normally for a Center – may be called on to support a new landscape or architecture of needs and demands, from people they never considered ‘their’ clients before, with colleagues in other Centers and even outside the CGIAR. Skills like knowledge translation and brokering may be needed more than some that that we already have. Existing knowledge bases may need to be opened up and made accessible across institutional firewalls and intranets. The CGIAR ‘active directory’ may come to be a critical ‘single sign on’ for a wider set of mega program partners to interact, access, and share… Or each Mega Program might become a virtual network or community spread like intersecting webs across multiple physical locations … we seem to have several options and choices that need to be worked through and clarified.
Existing center-branded and oriented tools and services may need to be re-thought completely.
What else…?
While it is certainly valuable for each mega program to use these research steps as a basis to design its own approaches and tools for knowledge sharing and communication, it is perhaps even more valuable for us to consider the specifics of mega programs as a way of organizing and doing research, and what these mean for the way we will do our information, communication and knowledge business in the new CGIAR.
[Luckily we don't start from a blank sheet; there is much inter-center legacy in this area to build on!]
Cheers
Peter
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Peter, you raise many and pertinent points. A few thoughts:
I totally agree that our models of operating need to change to reflect the real spirit of the shift in the CGIAR from institution based to programmatic based research. The signs so far show that we still have a long way to go: each megaprogram team work mostly on its own, platforms for sharing ideas, experiences across the teams were mostly dismissed, communication and knowledge sharing were omitted. But I am encouraged that the topics are now on the table and there are signs that some groups have started to address them.
On to the specifics of your points:
Learning and Monitoring and Evaluation: the model of Knowledge Sharing in Research we promote has indeed M&E in a central position. I totally agree… if we are to change, our measuring tools and methods have to change! to measure our progress in an outcome oriented research we need to move beyond measuring outputs. http://www.kstoolkit.org/KNOWLEDGE+SHARING+IN+RESEARCH offers a list of tools and methods to support effective M&E in a research process. WorldFish has experimented through a pilot project with embedding M&E methods in its research.
You also raise the point we need to have ICT infrastructure that supports increased and inclusive collaboration with our partners. Again this finds me in total agreement. We are in the process to prepare a new ICT strategy in the CGIAR that supports wider collaboration, beyond the boundaries of the CGIAR system. We already started moving that way with the introduction and support 2 years back of CGXchange, the new way to collaborate in the CGIAR, but more can be done in terms of acceptance and adoption.
and if we still had doubts about the value of communication in research, here is a relevant DFID financed study : http://www.panos.org.uk/?lid=32245
Its Key findings?
“Drawing on available research and evidence from the field, this briefing finds that the political and institutional context, including the degree of representativeness of government and the vibrancy of civil society, is important to understanding the capacity of the media to generate public debate around research and evidence, and to influence policy outcomes. The following factors strengthen the capacity of the media to do so:
• the capacity of journalists to use research to create stories that capture the public’s interest and are related to existing and emerging policy-making agendas
• the capacity of researchers to produce policy-relevant research and to work with intermediaries to present such research in a way that the media can use
• the capacity of civil society activists to pick up policy-related research and drive public debate around it
• the strength of the relationships among these actors – journalists, civil society activists and researchers – and their associated organisations, and the degree of openness and trust among them.”
With many thanks to @simonestaiger for the link!