CoP Webinar 3: Setting up and managing multistakeholder innovation facilities in project mode: bias, pitfalls and opportunities

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On April 13th, DeSIRA LIFT SA1 organised its 3rd CoP webinar on ´Setting up and managing multistakeholder innovation facilities in project mode: bias, pitfalls and opportunities´.

The webinar consisted of two sessions: one in English, and one in Spanish/French with simultaneous translation. The aim of the webinar was to critically review the different types of multistakeholder innovation facilities (MIF) that are put in place, or promoted, by DeSIRA projects: innovation platforms, innovation poles, living labs, innovation hubs, business clusters, forum, etc.

They sought to discuss two questions:

How do DeSIRA projects use these multistakeholder innovation facilities to enable strategic collaborations and empowerment of the right stakeholders for innovation development and generalisation?

and

What are the main managerial challenges, risks and pitfalls of these multistakeholder innovation facilities linked to project-based approaches, which could jeopardize their contributions to innovation development and generalisation?

Key takeaways from Keynote Speakers – Marc Schut from CGIAR,  and Ricardo Ramirez, DeSIRA LIFT Core Team expert from the University of Guelph Ontario – presentations and panel discussions are that:

There is a diversity of MIF in DeSIRA projects, based on their functions and the level at which they operate, playing different roles in the innovation scaling strategy (but not the strategy itself). Using or establishing  MIF responds to various strategies and functions and this should be well-defined before starting any. The duration of MIFs depends on their purpose and function in the innovation/transformation trajectory. This could be forming networks, capitalization and sensemaking, solving conflicting interests, knowledge creation and exchange, entrepreneurship, etc. The outcomes of MIFs could be integrated into country development strategies.

However MIFs are not necessarily the best option for innovation or to address the issues the innovation is targeting, and they also can be the place for powerplay among actors, based on their respective interests, their reading of the situation and objectives. MIFs can be blind as to why some stakeholders do not participate. The more the objective or the innovation is complex, or systemic, the more the MIFs entail interactions, multiple and less readable limits and multiple players.

Challenges, therefore, are to ensure that those who own the problem are involved in finding the solution, from the onset. This often requires collectively agreeing on terminology, on shared interests and taking into account cultural sensitivities or differences. Designing and implementing MIFs also require a length of time as well as the development of personal skills, such as patience and creativity for project teams. Identifying champions, allowing for flexibility and adjustment and a mechanism to support stakeholders to move in the same direction and arbitrate between function-oriented and equity-oriented are key to success, as well as a thoroughly thought-through exit strategy.

Presentations were given by, Raphaël Duboz from Santés & Territoires (West Africa/Southeast Asia – Benin, Sénégal, Laos, Cambodia); Vivian Torres from IDEAS (Colombia); Bruno Barbier, from IRRINN (Burkina Faso, French), Julius Ronvo from ICSIAPL (Eastern Africa, Kenya); Jaime Salama from Women, Coffee and Climate (Eastern Africa, Ethiopia) and Lucie Reynaud from ASSET (Southeast Asia).