Designing Research Impact in Rural Development

This workshop will provide rural development researchers, research funders, and aid managers an insight from a systems based framework for the design and assessment of knowledge, network and policy impacts from research investments.

There is growing need to capture the impacts of research on knowledge, policy, and stakeholder networks. Capturing this can help inform better design of investments that can lead to wider impacts on developing sustainable food systems. These tools are useful for demonstrating value of investments to funders, and assessing benefit of investments to final users.

The research impact tool presented in this workshop is based on an integrative framework that forms part of the Australian Centre’s for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) impact assessment tools. The framework presented and workshopped during this session will be relevant to participants interested in identifying baseline knowledge systems and networks at the design stage of projects, and to participants interested in using a novel framework for capturing impact of research and development investments.

The workshop is a pre-conference activity for the International Society for Human Ecology conference being held at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños.

Who should attend? Professionals working in agencies involved in agricultural rural development. The agriculture focus will mean that participants will need to understand the social, environmental, and political context of the agricultural sector in which they specialise.

It is expected that attendees will either be funders of agricultural research or aid programs, or be involved in implementing projects or evaluating their impact.