Speaker
Description
Introduction
Agroecological transition can be a lever for meeting the multi-dimensional and interdependent challenges of sustainability. However, issues relating to food and biomass production and the reduction of associated environmental impacts, as well as those linked to the protection of natural resources, biodiversity and the services provided by agricultural landscapes, are still mainly dealt with separately by scientists, public decision-makers, and territorial services, and on a sectoral basis.
In this context, in the collaborative interdisciplinary research project AMPERA (metabolic and landscape approach for a territorialised agro-ecological transition in livestock farming), we sought to design an innovative framework for the collective co-construction, sharing and appropriation of knowledge - with farmers, planners and territorial stakeholders. Therefore, we implement a specific method towards explicitly considering our targeted research impacts along the research process.
Approach
We implement the ASIRPA in itinere methodology (Joly et al. 2015, Matt et al. 2023), which is innovative in the research impact literature, and adapt it to the project. The principle of ASIRPA is to explicitly identify the social and/or agroecosystem transformations targeted by the research, in order to set up an appropriate research approach. Its central assumption is that a better understanding of the mechanisms leading to the desired transformations enables the research process to be more effective in contributing to these transformations. Indeed, transformations are not just the consequences of the project outputs, but involve “a long-term process that needs the involvement of multiple stakeholders” (Matt et al. 2023). We will therefore be working “in itinere”, returning regularly to the understanding and management of this process, throughout the project. This will enable us to highlight key areas of focus and milestones for the upcoming project years to ensure that the outcomes are effectively aligned with the desired transformations.
Materials, methods
Our research is carried out in 2 local communities in Brittany (western France). We are working with two groups: the project partners and the territorial stakeholders. We involve them in reflecting on the desired transformations and the intermediaries for achieving these transformations in project management. Therefore, we adapted the “Impact Pathway” from ASIRPA (Fig 1).
The desired transformations are deep and systemic changes to which we want the project to contribute. They can affect agro-systems, ecosystems, human organisations, knowledge production and education... The intermediaries are the people or processes that will help translate the project outputs into short-term transformations and then scale-up to long-term transformations.
Three workshops where organised, one with the project partners and one with the stakeholders in each of the territories we work with. We also conduct individual interviews with the partners and stakeholders. The workshops and interviews aim to identify how each person and the project collective sees and understands (1) the issues at stake (2) the transformations desired by stakeholders and partners; (3) how we can find synergies between the 3 dimensions of the project: production/circularity/ecosystem.
Results
The first results show that, (1) the desired transformations are not the same depending on the disciplines involved. Therefore, building a common definition of these transformations is not evident;
(2) transformations are sometimes not in line with the intended results of the project (e.g : an intended output on the evolution of practices versus a desired transformation in public policy); (3) discussing transformations contributes to the interdisciplinary approach and even to the interactions between partners in the project.
Discussion
The expected output is to increase the probability that this collaborative research-action project will actually contribute to farms and territories transformations.
We also hope this study will enable us to (1) understand better the territories project dynamics in the field of agroecology; (2) identify common grounds and discrepancies among the perspectives of territorial stakeholders as well as with project partners; (3) identify points of attention to manage the project in a collaborative way.
References
Joly, P. B., Matt, m., Gaunand, A., Colinet, l., Larédo, P. and Lemarié, S. (2015). ASIRPA: a comprehensive theory-based approach to assess societal impacts of a research organization, Research Evaluation, 24 (4), 440-453, doi:10.1093/reseval/rvv015
Matt, M., D. K. R. Robinson, P.-B. Joly, R. Van Dis and L. Colinet (2023). ASIRPAReal-Time in the making or how to empower researchers to steer research towards desired societal goals, Research Evaluation, doi:10.1093/reseval/rvad004
| Keywords | Real-time assessment; steering research projects; transformation pathway; management tool; ASIRPA in itinere |
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