This is a key question for improving the impact of our agricultural research. And you have  probably heard alot about this from us.  But what about from real research projects and researchers trying to do their part?

We have developed a second film to share with you the ongoing story of Lieven Claessens, a young CGIAR researcher, who first told us a sad story about a lack of sharing of research knowledge that moved us… but who, in a new project, has moved on to explore and test better ways of sharing knowledge. Hear and see for yourself:

Talking technical and theoretical

When we are talking about the need for and ways of making data, information and knowledge available, accessible and applicable; when we are promoting greater coherence in information systems or for open access; or giving training in knowledge sharing– it can easily become a technical conversation, and sometimes even a theoretical one.

But the CGIAR Triple A framework, the global movement towards ensuring greater coherence in information for agricultural research for development (CIARD), and the many activities and initiatives going on across the CGIAR and beyond are not just another theoretical exercise, and are also not just about technical mechanisms.

At the core of all of these are people. It is about making sure that valuable knowledge generated is shared in ways that a variety of people who make decisions in agriculture-such as farmers, extension agents, policy makers, development agents, and even researchers- can access it and use it in their decision making and actions towards improving agricultural systems and the livelihoods that are associated with them.  And it is also about the researchers who generate the knowledge and how best to support them to share their knowledge through the right incentives, benefits and resources.

A story that moved us…

In 2010 Lieven told a story, during the African Agricultural GIS Week (AAGW10), about his work on landslide hazard modeling and how he had developed and used a model to map areas of vulnerability to landslides; a model whose predictions came true in March 2010 as a landslide happened on the foot slopes of Mount Elgon, an area in Uganda, which left death and destruction.

Lieven then explained that he had done the usual scientific process of collecting data, developing his model, analysing the results of the model and finally… documenting it as a journal article. But he knew even before the tragedy that this would not be enough to get this valuable information out to those living in the areas at risk, those managing such situations, and the policy makers who make decisions to protect people. He expressed his feeling of the inadequacy of the only communication channel used by him, as with many researchers. While this is necessary to maintain the high scientific standards of the CGIAR, his main message was…

…this is just not enough! (with big head shake!)

This was a good reminder to us and for others about why we are working towards systems that open access to knowledge. And it moved us so much, we wanted to capture this story and the key messages in it to share with others-and so the first short film was born: ‘How science can not only predict but also mitigate the effects of natural disasters’ …and shared through a blog post putting the film in context.

This film was shown at a number of key events including at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair held in Addis Ababa in October 2010, at the Multi-site agricultural trial database for climate change analysis: Planning and launch workshop, held in Lukenya, Kenya on the 12th-13th October 2010 , and many other events where it stimulated intense debate and received high praise for its message.

Moving on

After the experience in that project, Lieven vowed that he would work with communication specialists and others to find ways to better interact with stakeholders and share knowledge in his next projects. And a new climate change adpatation project focused on Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya presented a great opportunity for him to try this out. Together with others at his then institute-the International Potato Centre (CIP)- this project was designed to make use of stakeholder meetings or a stakeholder platform, which would allow the project to continously interact and share with a variety of stakeholders- for example farmers, extension agents, local level policy government officials, at various stages of the research project to:

• learn about the context, issues, needs, existing knowledge and solutions
• ‘groundtruth’ and ‘adapt’ the knowledge and strategies generated from the research
• share knowledge from the project and gain feedback
• learn more about the ways in which the stakeholders can and would be able to access knowledge… to help design further opportunities for sharing knowledge that would be applicable

So we wanted to revisit Lieven and to hear about how this new project and the use of knowledge sharing tools was going. And of course we wanted to share it with you all too- in this follow up film.

Pathways to move along

One of the key messages from Lieven was that he felt that he was not well enough equipped with the knowledge, skills and experience of ‘communication’ tools to help him better share knowledge from his project–and he urged other researchers to also seek out help in these matters.

Lieven and his project chose to use stakeholder meetings/platforms as a pathway to make their knowledge move along.  There are a number of other pathways which research projects could make use of depending on the type of project and knowledge generated, target audiences, and overall goals. A choice of pathways offer a range of opportunities to

• Develop institutional readiness to better support open access and knowledge sharing, such as through improving the licensing and copyright options to encourage use and re-use of knowledge assets
• Increase the availability and accessibility of research outputs through good methods of collection and preservation, such as developing an open repository for digital content
• Make content widely accessible on the web, such as using social media to communicate research outputs
• Make knowledge travel through face to face activities such as roundtables
• Share knowledge in alternative ways which may be more applicable to various groups, such as through photos, videos or presentations

But whether you are a researcher- who does or doesn’t have ideas for more broader sharing of knowledge- a research manager, or even a communications or knowledge sharing professional, alot of work is being put into exploring, understanding, developing, and promoting useful tools, methods, and the necessary support mechanisms that  can be used to make knowledge travel, which is available  for example in:

• A number of pathways which have been documented and are available on the CIARD website
• A ‘How can I…’ series available on this CGIAR site which can help to guide you through using some key tools and methods for sharing knowledge by providing easy steps based on real and useful experiences
• The Knowledge Sharing Toolkit which is jam-packed with ideas, information and insights about using tools and methods for sharing knowledge

So if you want to get started and move on…it’s as easy as ABC!

Photo credits:

- Thumbnail Uploaded by hbrinkman on Nov 3, 2007 at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/899883

- Photo of group of people by Nadia Manning-Thomas

Video credits: Lieven Claessens, Peter Casier, Bart Sels, Noah Kebede, Nadia Manning-Thomas. Francesca Pelloni, Enrica Porcari

From the Share Fair blog:

“Rob Burnet leads Well Told Story, a multi-award-winning Kenyan communications company which pulls together comic books, syndicated FM radio, SMS, social media, web, video animation, strategy and science to help change the way people live, think, act and govern in East Africa.”

To the delight of the Share Fair audience Burnet offered that inadequate budgets for communication could be the missing link in research! Using Hollywood as an example, where 30% of budgets are spent on publicity, he lamented that agricultural research doesn’t always succeed in delivering great ideas that final step into the hands of beneficiaries. In an interview after the presentation (see clip posted below) he said:

“The reason we do this work is to change the life of poor people, if we stop short of making those brilliant ideas… accessible to those they are intended to benefit – let’s go home…”

This is a message that the communications community will no doubt welcome! However, in the meantime there are lots of ways to make sure CGIAR research outputs are Available, Accessible and Applicable.  The Triple-A Framework developed by the ICT-KM Program seeks to help Centers, Programs and their scientists decide on the level of Availability, Accessibility and Applicability (AAA) they want for their research outputs, and also the pathways with which to turn these outputs into International Public Goods.

For a complete introduction to the Framework see “Availability, Accessibility and Applicability of the CGIAR Research Outputs”

Such was the challenge confronting the team of collaborators responsible for developing the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) for Roots, Tubers and Bananas for Food Security and Income (RTB) last year. However, true to the collaborative spirit that underpins all the CRPs, stakeholder consultations were successfully carried out using both traditional face-to-face formats and online tools.

If you would like to know how they pulled it off, you can read all about it in a publication co-authored by collaborators from each of the four CGIAR Centers involved in the RTB Program: the International Potato Center (CIP), Bioversity International, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Entitled, “Incorporating stakeholder perspectives in international agricultural research: the case of the CGIAR Research Program for Roots, Tubers and Bananas for Food Security and Income”, the case study describes the process used to engage stakeholders and incorporate their feedback into program design, with lessons learned and experiences that can serve others looking to replicate, adapt, or build upon this example.

Stakeholder input was gathered via regional workshops, on-line surveys, and one-on-one interviews. Our  Tania Jordan, one of the publication’s co-authors, helped setup online survey tool, SurveyMonkey, where over 150 people could provide detailed, novel, thoughtful – and highly useful ideas for the Program proposal.

“The survey was carried out in Spanish, English and French,” says Tania. “Although I was chiefly responsible for creating the survey and providing the team with technical support, I also made some suggestions regarding the actual survey questions, based on my previous experience with carrying out other surveys.”

The RTB Program team managed to easily communicate information about the Program and upload relevant documents through a public Google powered Site Tania helped setup and she also helped the collaborative process by instructing the proposal writing team on how to use Google Docs to write and review the proposal with people based at the different Centers. To learn more about the process involved, you can find lots of useful tips in a tutorial written by Tania: How can I write a proposals collaboratively?

I would like to extend my congratulations to the RTB Program for taking the initiative of documenting the experiences with the stakeholder consultations that resulted in this exciting publication, and to Tania for contributing to this successful collaborative process.

Using video to record scientific results is not new, but these days, things couldn’t be easier. Videos can be relatively easy and cheap to make, manipulate, and share with a wide audience on the Internet. Video can also be used to show things that take place over time, in a way that would be almost impossible face-to-face. For example, research that takes place over several months, or even years, can be condensed into a short video clip and shared with other scientists and students across the world, ultimately enabling others to reproduce and/or build on the depicted research.

Video in the CGIAR

The CGIAR is no stranger to using video to raise awareness, document science and share new scientific methodologies that can help build capacity, and generate new applications and innovation.

For example, take the work of several entomologists from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Dr. Soroush Parsa and his team have the distinction of being the first scientists in the CGIAR to publish in the world’s only peer-reviewed video journal: Journal of Visual Experiments (JoVE). These innovative scientists produced a 10-minute video demonstrating the procedures for assessing spittlebug resistance in brachiaria grasses and uploaded it onto JoVE for peer-review and publishing. JoVE publishes biological, medical, chemical and physical research experiments as videos, accompanied by instructions and details of possible technical problems.

“The protocol reflects decades of refinement, making it a great model for other breeding efforts,” said Parsa. “We wanted to share it formally – but very intuitively – with a diverse international audience interested in crop improvement.”

The video, which took almost a year to make, was produced by CIAT’s Reynaldo Pareja and supervisor Guillermo Sotelo, neither of whom had prior video production experience. Parsa now has plans to use videos to help train farmers in field sampling techniques, thereby helping to speed up the rate of scientific research.

You can read the news story and also watch a special behind-the-scenes video that shows how Parsa and his team documented their research.

Elsewhere in the CGIAR

The ICT-KM Program’s work with the Adaptation & Mitigation Knowledge Network (AMKN) has resulted in several videos that highlight the plight of people in Africa and India who are adversely affected by a changing climate. These hard-hitting videos have reached more people than any written report ever could.

Over at the Africa Rice Center in Cotonou, Benin, staff have produced videos in close collaboration with researchers, field workers, rice farmers and rice processors that incorporate lessons from participatory learning and action research. Such videos help build human and institutional capacities within the rice sector in Africa.

Other CGIAR videos document water harvesting in Nicaragua (Towards A Blue Revolution); coffee and climate change in Colombia (Two Degrees Up Part One); and the work of AgroSalud to develop bio-fortified crops (Feeding Ambitions), to name just a few. All it takes to find out more about these challenges is a few clicks of a mouse. There’s no wading through lengthy documents, or grappling to understand the focus of the issue, or coping with the difficulties associated with trying to visualize the situation on the ground.

Although the CGIAR abounds with videos documenting the activities of researchers around the globe, there will always be a need for written scientific papers and reports. Still, the ever-reaching power of video can no longer be denied.

We’d love to hear how you have used video to promote your work. Please drop us a line in the box below and let us know what has worked for you.

Photo credit: jaylopez at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/975857

The objectives of the ShareFair were to demonstrate how the active and strategic participation of knowledge improves the effectiveness, efficiency and impact of any work. Participants, some 200 professionals from over 70 organizations and 18 countries, were also given an opportunity to experiment with knowledge sharing tools and methodologies, while sharing and learning good practices.

The event, which was organized by the Information and Communications Technology and Knowledge Management (ICT-KM) Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community, served to gather experiences related to rural development (mainly agriculture and livestock production) and exemplify what is happening in terms of knowledge management in Latin America.

Of the numerous case studies presented at the ShareFair, eight relating to agriculture, development, and food security (key issues addressed during the event) were selected for inclusion in the publication and serve to illustrate how knowledge-related processes involve complementary technological, technical, and human factors.

Five case studies (Condesan, Prodarnet, Preval, INIA, CIAT) illustrate purely regional experiences, while three (CIARD, Vercon, and SGRP) provide an interesting global perspective.

Although the publication is in Spanish, the following are translations of the case study section titles:

• Condesan: E-forums of the Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion: 17 years of learning between people and tools (by Musuq Briceño and Alejandra Visscher)
• Prodarnet: Virtual networks for promoting rural agribusinesses in Latin America (by Hernando Riveros and Marvin Blanco)
• Preval: Image assessment: A communications proposal for social learning (by Emma Rotondo)
• INIA: Participatory research as a knowledge management process (by María Marta Albicette)

• CIAT: Innovation facilitators in rural agribusinesses: Market knowledge as a compass for  innovation (by Érika Eliana Mosquera and Jhon Jairo Hurtado)
• CIARD: From words to action: Information on agricultural research available to the public, fully accessible and applicable (by Nadia Manning-Thomas and Enrica Porcari)
• Vercon: Knowledge sharing among agricultural research and extension systems (by Sophie Treinen)

• SGRP: Motivating scientists to share knowledge in the Global Public Goods (GPG2) project (by Maria Alejandra Jorge)

• Conclusion (by Sebastião Ferreira, Simone Staiger and Camilo Villa)

In concluding, the authors outlined the need for knowledge sharing to be explicitly used to promote learning between actors. “Knowledge currently plays a key role in many development policies, accompanied by an important effort of the informatics sector and ICTs in general. Nonetheless, the learning and social engineering that accompany knowledge should become the main forces promoting knowledge and innovation, not the contrary, which is what happens nowadays.”

Download complete publication in Spanish (13M)

The Fair’s organizers gratefully acknowledge IICA’s collaboration in the design and layout of the publication.

See more information on the Fair’s blog

Learn more about Knowledge Share Fairs

The CIARD initiative works to make public domain outputs of agricultural research information and knowledge truly publicly available and accessible to all. The initiative, started in 2008, is led by a group of major international organizations, all with a long-standing role in enhancing the sharing of information and knowledge arising from agricultural research.

The CIARD Fair provides descriptions of innovative pathways and services for sharing information and knowledge

The CIARD Fair is an innovative resource that allows visitors to navigate through three routes: the ‘Pathways’ – describing in detail ways to share research outputs more effectively;  ‘Services’ – which are standards, tools, systems and training for achieving the Pathways; and ‘Enablers’ – the organizations that provide Services for achieving the Pathways. Visitors can explore the different routes through the Fair according to their specific interests. Each Pathway, Service and Enabler is linked to further more detailed information and shows ways to explore other resources on the Internet. Navigation through the interconnected elements of the Fair is intuitive and is designed to provide an information-rich environment for the visitor.

Organizations can show services and products in the Fair which will be useful to those investigating and learning about the opening up and sharing of research information and knowledge, and there are currently 18 Enablers and 27 Services included in the current Fair.  The CIARD partners are eager to develop the Fair by encouraging new enabling organizations and services to get involved.

You can explore the Fair at the CIARD site at http://www.ciard.net/ciard-virtual-fair

Building on the success of the First Global Knowledge Share Fair, this three-day event provides a forum for participants to learn and share their knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues.

The organisers are now inviting proposals for sessions on the following specific themes:

• new trends and thinking on coping with market access challenges and developing markets for small farmers
• innovative use of mobile technology and/or social media in the agriculture sector to enhance food security and nutrition
• the impact of migration and population growth to feed future population
• new technologies and innovative agricultural and farming practices to increase productivity
• opportunities for innovative partnerships including with private sector, farmer organizations, environment-friendly and green innovations

Download the submission form and send in your abstracts and proposals by latest 1 July 2011 by an email to: share-fair@fao.org. (Please write in the subject line “Abstract/Proposal”).

This meeting has been an interesting opportunity to share, learn, discuss current issues, and explore ways to collectively undertake actions to overcome the issues and work more closely together to support inter-Center and  CGIAR Research Program (CRP) communication and collaboration…

I invite you to read the following post from Simone Staiger; which provides a wonderful insider’s view and summary of the topics they have been discussing this week: ‘Initial thoughts about CG communications and stakeholder engagement‘.

and what’s your take?

Photo credits:  Simone Staiger (CIAT)

Then in 2007 an initiative comprising two main components: Institutional Knowledge Sharing (IKS) and Knowledge Sharing in Research (KSinR) was launched.

The IKS project demonstrated how KS methods and principles can open up meaningful spaces for face-to-face dialogues. The project also supported three pilot projects at three Centers to experiment with innovative KS techniques. All three pilots led to concrete outcomes and/or products that can be replicated in other Centers or partner organizations

The IKS project was spearheaded by Simone Staiger-Rivas, a knowledge sharing specialist and social communicator with 13 years’ experience in the coordination of international communications projects. Simone quickly became a familiar face in the CGIAR as she facilitated many high-profile events and conducted workshops across the System.

The launch of a new knowledge sharing initiative

When the IKS project was concluded in 2009, Simone continued to develop the knowledge sharing work she had begun in 2005 at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Colombia. Collaborative efforts with other CIAT members of staff soon led to the formation of a new knowledge sharing initiative led by Simone.

The ICT-KM team is pleased to announce the launch of CIAT’s Capacity Strengthening and Knowledge Management Initiative (Capacity). Capacity will build on the Center’s previous knowledge sharing and capacity building/strengthening gains to enrich research partnerships and processes. This will be achieved by facilitating and mainstreaming the use of participatory tools and methods in areas such as strategic planning, research, monitoring and evaluation, and documentation, at the same time drawing on more traditional approaches to training when needed.

I am glad to see that Simone’s experience with the Program is being put to further use in this new endeavor. Sometimes, it’s difficult to find concrete evidence that our work is “working’, so it’s especially gratifying when people like Simone acknowledge our contribution.

We would like to wish Simone and her team members every success with the new initiative and look forward to working with her again in the future.

The study assessed the results of the four pilot activities, illustrated the systemic impact of the project, and presented lessons distilled from the combined experience of KS professionals in six CGIAR Centers. The evaluation study used semi-structured, open-ended telephone interviews to gather feedback from 14 KS practitioners directly involved in the first phase of the KS project. This anecdotal feedback was then organized and analyzed so as to shed light on the benefits and challenges of the KS project. The interview questions were designed to probe for different kinds of benefits associated with the projects’ overall objectives that practitioners might find in their KS work. The final report was published in May 2009.

As I thought about this, I remembered a discussion I had with the consultant hired to carry out the evaluation (Ben Hack, now at ICARDA), who mentioned that he tried to see if the term “knowledge sharing” had made its way into the CGIAR mid-term plans (MTPs). He thought that its presence might be an indicator of KS being mainstreamed in the CGIAR. Unfortunately, the results were disappointing; an insignificant number of MTPs mentioned the term “knowledge sharing”.

Three years later, I thought it would be interesting to repeat the exercise by looking at the CRP proposals. So, my colleague Katherine Tehelen and I carried out a similar, quick scan of terms related to knowledge sharing and the frequency with which they are mentioned in the proposals (updates versions available at: http://consortium.cgxchange.org/home/strategy-and-results-framework/list-of-crp-proposals).

Some results

We looked at the following terms (total number of mentions in all CRPs in brackets):

1. Information (1076)
2. Knowledge (994)
   • Knowledge Management (49)
   • Knowledge Sharing (120)
3. Communication(s) (544)
4. Capacity (not included in our study)
   • Capacity Building (237)
   • Capacity Strengthening (69)
   • Capacity Development (118)

The slide show below, shows the various terms related to “knowledge sharing” that appear in the CRP proposals, and the frequency with which they appear.

CRP3.4 “Roots, Tubers and Bananas” is the proposal with the biggest number of mentions (348) of all the above terms, followed by CRP4 “Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health” (326); and CRP7 “Climate Change” (279). Among the proposals with the fewest mentions of the above terms are CRP5 “Durable Solutions for Water Scarcity and Land Degradation” (102) and CRP3.1 “Wheat” (118).CRP5, for example, does not include the terms “knowledge management”, “knowledge sharing”, “capacity strengthening” or “capacity development”.

CRP7 “Climate Change” is by far the biggest user of the word “information” (140 mentions), whereas CRP4 “Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health” is the top user of the word “communication” with 82 mentions. “Knowledge” is the word that CRP3.4 “Roots, Tubers and Bananas” uses the most (113 times). “Knowledge management” has been used mostly by CRP3.2 “Maize” with 11 mentions; “Knowledge sharing” is popular in CRP1.3 “Aquatic Agricultural Systems”. If we consider capacity strengthening/building/development as the same concept, CRP3.3 “GRiSP” is the biggest user with 37 mentions (capacity development).

When we look at the Strategy and Results Framework (SRF) document, and compare it to the CRP results, we can see that the document frequently uses the word “communication(s)” (62 mentions), makes moderate use of terms related to “knowledge”; and makes little use of the word “information” (only 13 mentions). The SRF privileges the term “capacity strengthening” over capacity development or capacity building.

Those findings certainly depend on many factors, such as the nature of the CRPs, the organizational culture of the Center and / or the people who wrote and edited the proposals or simply the length of the proposal.

Perhaps it is also interesting to compare these findings with the use of other key words. Let’s look at CRP7 “Climate Change” and CRP3.4 “Roots, Tubers and Bananas”, where we can see that terms related to knowledge management have relevance.

Comparing key words

Questions for you

• Does this exercise make sense to you?
• Have we left out some key words?
• Are you surprised by the results?

Taking a closer look

Now that these terms have made it into the CRPs and the SRF, it would be interesting to have a closer look at the exact plans for knowledge sharing, capacity building, communications, etc., as expressed in the CRPs.  And then, of course, we would need to monitor and evaluate over time to see if and how the original plans related to communications, capacity building and knowledge sharing are implemented and with what results.

Look out for our next post on this subject, after we hear from some of the contributors to the CRPs!

_______________________________________

CRP proposals

Find the links to latest and/or approved proposals, Center websites and stakeholder consultations at the list of CRP proposals on the Consortium website.

1. CRP1.1 Integrated agricultural production systems for dry areas
2. CRP1.2 Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics
3. CRP1.3 Harnessing the development potential of aquatic agricultural systems for the poor and vulnerable
4. CRP2 Policies, institutions, and markets to strengthen assets and agricultural incomes for the poor
5. CRP3.1 WHEAT-Global Alliance for Improving Food Security and the Livelihoods of the Resource-poor in the Developing World
6. CRP3.2 MAIZE – Global Alliance for Improving Food Security and the Livelihoods of the Resource-poor in the Developing World
7. CRP3.3 GRiSP – A Global Rice Science Partnership
8. CRP3.4 Roots, tubers and bananas for Food Security and Income
9. CRP3.5 Grain Legumes: enhanced food and feed security, nutritional balance, economic growth and soil health for smallholder farmers
10. CRP3.6 Dryland cereals: Food Security and Growth for the World’s Most Vulnerable Poor
11. CRP3.7 Sustainable staple food productivity increase for global food security: Livestock and Fish
12. CRP4 Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health
13. CRP5 Durable Solutions for Water Scarcity and Land Degradation
14. CRP6 Forests and Trees: livelihoods, landscapes and governance
15. CRP7 Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security