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Moderated conference on impact assessment of agricultural research: May 2014

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Mon, 19 May 2014 13:32:18 +0200
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This is Anna Augustyn again (I sent Message 9). 

 

I would like to add some points to discussion on the use of participatory methods in ex post impact assessment (epIA) of agricultural research, mentioned by a couple of colleagues. I’ve been working extensively with both conventional and participatory methods, in scientific research and in public policy consultancy. My experience is that a good way is to combine both.

 

I'm screening now various types of IA (such as social impact assessment (SIA), heritage impact assessment (HIA), environmental impact assessment (EIA) etc.) and I am realizing that concerns are pretty same, though less focused on farmers. I am here more interested in understanding participatory/conventional research in impact assessment as ways of communication with various stakeholders of agricultural research. We do not only have farmers and researchers in epIA, but also donors, policy makers, NGOs, consumers, general public etc. They are all directly/indirectly concerned with the impact of agricultural research, but there is less chance to involve them all fairly into participatory research process. This is why we need to combine both streams. Also because the wider system that validates our research is still very biased towards conventional research methods. Assessing the degree of participation may be quite misleading, if we judge by peoples' presence, enthusiasm and immediate deliverables we observe from participatory research events. I think it is more about changing the attitudes and principles of individuals. They happen in an evolutionary way at personal level, so maybe psychological methods of inquiry could be more of use, if we want to explore it further.

 

I agree on many points with Huu-Nhuan Nguyen, especially from the communication perspective. Actually conventional and participatory research are also different ways of communication. Some people prefer more interactive and visual communication, some others like algorithms and numbers on a paper. Personally, I am critical about questionnaires (or rather “checklists”): many that I’ve seen did not correspond with capacities of respondents, mainly because they used too abstract or technical language, or were too detailed and people lost their enthusiasm to answer. So what will be our knowledge about impacts, if we can’t communicate well? Will stakeholders read our reports/papers and understand them? And will they learn from these? Maybe it is better to involve them in co-creation of knowledge (shared understanding) on epIA and there are many participatory ways it can be helped. 

 

Anna Augustyn

Free-lance consultant,

Wrzeciono 8/38,

Warsaw

Poland 

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ania-augustyn/4a/4a2/165

https://uw.academia.edu/AnnaAugustyn

e-mail: ania.augustyn (at) yahoo.de

 

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