The Farmer Business School (FBS) is a participatory, action learning process focused on product and business development, and like the Farmer Field School, is a complex, multi-dimensional innovation with the potential to benefit large numbers of farming households economically, socially and institutionally. Scaling this approach requires rethinking both innovation and scaling. The paper draws on the insights of recent research which argues that a systems approach to innovation can better address the complexity of scaling processes and provides frameworks that link together processes of innovation and scaling. In examining these frameworks, the paper identifies the key role of partnership dynamics in those processes. Drawing on both the innovation and scaling literature and literature on partnership dynamics, a conceptual framework is developed to analyze how partnership dynamics contribute to and constrain the transition from small-scale ‘niche’ innovation testing led by researchers, to large scale integration of the approach by development partners in agricultural ‘regimes’. Using case studies involving partnerships between a small international agricultural research grant recipient and six large development projects supported by IFAD multilateral loans and managed by government agencies undertaken in four Asian countries between 2011 and 2018, the study analyses the variable dynamics of the partnerships from initial networking to integrated collaboration, in the process of scaling the FBS innovation. Responding to the main research question about the drivers of partnership dynamics that contribute to scaling, the paper examines the partnerships in terms of six drivers which derived both from the literature and also from the empirical evidence presented in the study. The drivers include two dimensions of “fit”, one about the convergence of research expertise and development demand, the other about the systematic integration of the innovation with different elements of the development actions. Other drivers relate to the issue of the convergence of project cycles, the stability of staffing in partner organizations, internal decision-making processes and the dimension of “partnering” – the value-based and behavioral aspects of collaboration. The paper also discusses the results of a “partnership health check-up” process conducted periodically during the partnerships and reconsiders the driver about system fit to understand the extent to which there had been a transformation in the conventional ‘regime’ approach to innovations and scaling. Finally, the paper proposes to adjust the conceptual framework based on the analysis of these partnerships for scaling innovations.

中文翻译：

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扩展复杂创新的研发合作伙伴关系：农发基金在亚洲支持的贷款赠款合作中农民商学院的经验教训

农民商学院 (FBS) 是一个专注于产品和业务开发的参与式行动学习过程，与农民田间学校一样，是一项复杂的、多维的创新，有可能在经济、社会和经济上惠及大量农户。制度上。扩展这种方法需要重新思考创新和扩展。该论文借鉴了最近研究的见解，该研究认为系统创新方法可以更好地解决扩展过程的复杂性，并提供将创新和扩展过程联系在一起的框架。在检查这些框架时，本文确定了伙伴关系动态在这些过程中的关键作用。借鉴创新和扩展文献以及关于伙伴关系动态的文献，开发了一个概念框架来分析伙伴关系动态如何促进和限制从研究人员领导的小规模“利基”创新测试到农业“制度”中发展伙伴的方法大规模整合的转变。该研究使用案例研究，涉及 2011 年至 2018 年间在四个亚洲国家开展的由农发基金多边贷款支持并由政府机构管理的小型国际农业研究赠款接受者与六个大型发展项目之间的伙伴关系，分析了伙伴关系的可变动态在扩展 FBS 创新的过程中，集成协作。回应关于有助于扩展的伙伴关系动态驱动因素的主要研究问题，本文从文献和研究中提供的经验证据中得出的六个驱动因素研究了伙伴关系。驱动因素包括“适合”的两个维度，一个是研究专长和开发需求的融合，另一个是创新与开发行动的不同要素的系统整合。其他驱动因素与项目周期的趋同问题、合作伙伴组织的人员配备稳定性、内部决策过程和“合作”的维度——基于价值和行为的合作方面有关。该论文还讨论了在合作期间定期进行的“合作伙伴健康检查”过程的结果，并重新考虑了系统匹配的驱动因素，以了解传统“制度”方法在创新和扩展方面的转变程度. 最后，本文建议根据对这些伙伴关系的分析来调整概念框架，以扩大创新。