Final Report. Research Into Use Programme, July 2006 – December 2012 [including annexes]

Abstract

The RIU was commissioned in 2006 to address ways to scale up successful innovations from agricultural research. The intention of RIU was to deliver impact from the 11-year (1995 to 2006) DFID-funded suite of programmes on Renewable Natural Resources (RNRRS). This change in direction - to focus upon funding research on uptake rather than on the generation of new technologies - was a new approach for DFID (and the research community) in agricultural research. RIU has been a large and complex programme. It underwent a substantive change in management and direction following the 2009 Mid-Term Review (MTR).

Following the introduction to this report, Section 2 describes the evolution of the RIU in relation to the critical event timeline in terms of the approaches it took and the issues encountered. Section 3 covers the approaches it took, the results subsequently obtained, the issues it faced and what lessons did it learn along the way. This takes a chronological approach covering the original RIU timeframe (to June 2011) and then the extension period (until December 2012). Given the change management process that took place within the RIU, this report focuses primarily on the period after the MTR. The fourth section covers a second evaluation exercise undertaken in 2012 but with a focus solely on case studies from Africa which sought to demonstrate whether the RIU was value for money and to take forward the thinking on agricultural innovation. The final section attempts to summarise the findings of the RIU with the wider context of agricultural development.

The annexes to the final report are available in 2 separate files (annex 6 is in a separate file due to its size). The annexes are as follows:

  • Annex 1a Summary and details of selected RIU publications
  • Annex 1b Knowledge outputs delivered during RIU extension phase (from July 2011)
  • Annex 2 RIU logframe
  • Annex 3 Output proforma template and list of RNRRS proformas collated
  • Annex 5 Brief descriptions of projects in RIU South Asia portfolio
  • Annex 6 Final reports from RIU South Asia ICF projects
  • Annex 7 List and abstracts of CRT discussion papers
  • Annex 8 Final reports for RIU Africa Country Programmes
  • Annex 9 Business plan template for RIU Best Bets
  • Annex 10 Independent panelists for RIU Best Bets, Nairobi 2009
  • Annex 11 Final reports for RIU Best Bets portfolio
  • Annex 12 Final report for RIU Parliamentarian Study, Rwanda
  • Annex 13 Net Present Impact (NPI) – Sarura example
  • Annex 14 Short summaries of the business proposals from the pilot programme, Rwanda

Citation

Frost, A. Final Report. Research Into Use Programme, July 2006 – December 2012. Research into Results, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK (2013) 105 + 421 + 484 pp.

Published 1 January 2013