Science through PartnershipsJonathan Woolley, Annette Huber-Lee, Boru Douthwaite, Anne Starks Acosta

Challenge Program on Water and Food

Global changes and poverty

More rapid and complex changes are now facing the world, with severe implications for the poor.

These problems require innovative research approaches to solve.

Partnerships improve both the sustainability of science and its quality and relevance.

Presentation outline

Background: Objectives of partnerships

Mobilizing new partnerships

Fostering more effective and inclusive partnerships

Creating an enabling environment for partnerships in the CGIAR and beyond

Partnerships, not a luxury, nor a ‘fad’

Norman Borlaug and Glenn Anderson with Indian Ministers, scientists and farmers, Punjab, ca. 1974

Objectives of partnerships

Knowledge sharing or creation: foster information sharing and collaborative learning; cross-fertilization of solutions; deployment of successful technologies

Political motives: accountability to stakeholders, greater leverage and political legitimacy

Strategic motives: access to resources and efficiency of resource use

Foster systemic solutions to systemic problems, mimicking the complexity of the system

Foster/accelerate behavioral and institutional changes through social learning

Sources: Huxham & Vangen (2005), Hardy, Phillips & Lawrence (2003).

CPWF grapples with complex issues

Far

from

Certainty

Ag

reem

en

t

Close to Far from

Clo

se to Simple

Plan, control

Zone of Complexity

Technically Complicated Experiment, coordinate expertise

SociallyComplicated Build relationships, create common ground

Source: Patton, 2007

•Formulaic solutions have limited applicability•Past success is no guarantee of future success•Expertise can help but is not sufficient; relationships are key•Uncertainty of outcome remains

Partnerships for complex issues

Investing in partnerships

Complex Multiple Action researchchallenges organizations Social learning

Implications

Partnership investments required

Time lag in results

Results more difficult to predict a priori (planning implications)

IPGs grow from local research

Attracting ‘nontraditional’ partnersExamples from CPWF

Water institutions (Mekong River Commission & Yellow River Conservancy Commission) coordinate research

An NGO association of universities (WaterNet) leads a project in southern Africa and focuses on MSc and PhD research

Seven Consortium members are NGOs, ARIs and a river basin organisation, eleven are CGs and NARES

36 percent of 200+ project partners are NGOs, ARIs, CBOs; 52% are NARES

Partners in first set of CPWF research projects

Partnerships strengthened and formed

165 organizations received funding in first call projects

The nodes  are predominantly green, red, blue, pink and black -- CG Centres, NARES, Universities, ARIs and NGOs

CG Centres are hubs that hold the network together

Best practices identified in the collaboration literature

Get the “right” people and organizations (commitment, competence, continuity & complementarity)

Clear, shared objectives: designed by all, reflect stakeholders’ diverse interests/needs, flexible

If necessary, budget for capacity building of weaker partners

Agree on how to disagree (conflict resolution processes)

Share recognition and responsibility for outcomes

Best practices identified in the collaboration literature

Allow time for development of social capital (social capital = trust + common language)

… but balance concern for process with focus on task outcomes. Thus:

Look for many small wins to foster trust

Strengthen capacity in facilitation, negotiation, and participatory M&E

Reward the work of “boundary spanners”

Building social capital

Practical hints from CPWF experience

Giving more leadership responsibility to non-CG partners often changes the way the science questions are handled

Examples of improved handling: better attention to integration, attention to scale issues, connection to policy making, impact

Virtual communication in dispersed networks; F2F needed for complex debate

Work with projects to make their impact pathways explicit

CPWF Volta Basin research network

Line colour = project

Look to foster research synergy in organizations involved in more than one project (e.g., SARI, ISSER, WRI)

A good balance of in-basin (red) and out-of-basin (blue) organizations

Practical hints from CPWF experienceManaging cultural and institutional differences

Agree on team standards for response time, sharing information, giving credit, and time to be invested in discussion

Agree on criteria for diversity (disciplinary experience, age, nationality, gender) across institutions involved

Full-time dedication much more effective than part-timeAgree on supervision responsibilities across institutional boundaries

A Project of the: Sponsored by:

Diverse interdisciplinary team. Three basins. Producing “Small Reservoirs Tool Kit”.

Partnerships enrich science

Example: PLANNING SMALL RESERVOIRS

PhD student showed that evapo-transpiration was less than expected. Also accurately estimated storage volume.

His approaches/findings incorporated by U-Zimbabwe & EMBRAPA.

His work also led to an MS by a Ghanaian student on delineation of small reservoirs from satellite imagery

All together 20 BSc, 30 MSc, 9 PhDs trainedcompared to 4 originally planned!

Partnerships enrich science

Example: AEROBIC RICE

IRRI began work in China in 2001 (pre-CPWF)

Through CPWF, the work expanded to Indo-Gangetic plains, Mekong uplands and Philippines

CPWF impact pathways mapping (including extrapolation domain and scenario analysis) increased researchers thinking about scaling-out and scaling-up

CPWF basin focus leading to further work on downstream consequences and year to year variability

Partners: IRRI, CAU, IARI, PhilRice, NAFRI (Lao PDR)

Aerobic rice extrapolation domains

Huge potential

in India and

Indochina/

Thailand?

Lower expectation in Africa, but over

2m km2 ‘of interest’

Partnerships enrich science

Example: RURAL AFRICAN ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Four levels of analysis: Household, Basin, National, Regional

New insights on local perceptions of - and adaptive capacity to - climate change at household and province level (U Pretoria, EDRI)

Combined global CGE model that can that includes agriculture, water and livelihood effects and distributional impacts of climate change (IFPRI and U Hamburg)

Interaction with policy makers to develop national adaptation strategies (Ethiopian Economics Association, U Pretoria)

Local adaptation to climate change

How can CGIAR donors contribute?

Strengthen incentives for donor country ARIs to collaborate with CG networks

Seek ways to connect development projects to research networks to create sustainability

Consider longer project time horizons and allow funding of stakeholder capacity building, development of social capital

“Light earmarking” of grants/loans to developing countries, to collaborate with and “buy” services from CGIAR system

Encourage developing country governments to invest more in agricultural sector (e.g., Maputo declaration)

Treat networks and social capital as both meansand output of projects

How can the Science Council contribute?

Allow greater flexibility in the design and outputs of projects implemented by networks:

Need logic model compatible with emergent learning. CPWF is further developing Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis for this.

To satisfy all partners, a mix of project outputs must be permitted

Research/development and local/international public goods divisions become blurred

At outset of partnerships, build in time for learning and development of social capital

(investments, not transaction costs)

Conclusions

More complex problems require:Involvement of more stakeholders

Different kinds of research processes

Partnerships can create sustainable research communities for developing countries, that cross boundaries and disciplines and create new communities of practice

Impact from research is more likely when partners make explicit their impact pathways and monitor progress along them

Important new approaches for donors and science planners are implied

Dialogue: the power of collective thinking

(dia-logos = “Meaning Flowing Through”)

“At present, people create barriers between each other by their fragmentary thought. Each one operates separately.

When those barriers have dissolved, then there arises one mind, where they are all one unit, but each person also retains his or her own individual awareness.

In dialogue, the goal is to create a special environment in which a different kind of relationship among parts can come into play – one that reveals both high energy and high intelligence.”

-- David Bohm

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