The rationale for kick-starting interdisciplinary research (IDR) processes in the project through capacity-building was the perceived complexity involved in scientific collaboration amongst staff from various disciplines, as well as a lack of capacity and knowledge within most of ZEF research staff about how to organize it28. The capacity-
building was foreseen as a route “towards attitudinal changes and skill enhancement that
28 The observation and experience of the researcher responsible for writing the social science part of the third phase proposal was that there was a general lack of reading and capacity on IDR within ZEF (Personal communication, July 2012).
were required [to kick start] an intensive process of team building, training about participatory research methods and innovation processes, and design of an [interdisciplinary
research] approach fit to the Khorezm context”(Martius et al., 2006: 181). Thus, capacity building was assumed to inculcate knowledge and attitudinal changes amongst the participating staff members to recognize the validity of other disciplines and to overcome their own disciplinary biases towards others, to equip the participants with needed additional skills for being able to work interdisciplinary, and to facilitate interdisciplinary team building processes. It was hoped that through capacity-building and facilitation, the participants would be able to design an approach towards innovation adoption that would fit the Khorezm context. In parallel, the ‘innovation packages’ to be taken up for concrete implementation were to be assessed, selected, and research started on innovations of lower degrees of maturity, and supporting research started on issues relevant to the design and implementation of the interactive processes (Martius et al., 2006: 181).
The plan was that during year 1 of the third project phase, interdisciplinary teams would be formed around the selected ‘innovation packages’. This process of team formation was to be led and facilitated by a senior staff member, an FTI facilitator, exclusively responsible for the overall management and facilitation of the capacity-building as well as actual FTI process. The initial aim of the capacity and team building processes was inclusion of three to four innovations for IDR experimentation, and the ability of the teams responsible for the selected innovations to produce their specific IDR work plans. The first year experiences were to serve as early case studies and learning occasions for the whole FTI team. The resource persons for actual carrying out of the trainings about IDR were to be recruited as short-term external consultants, for which financial resources were earmarked in the project proposal.
The FTI work package (Mollinga, 2006) presented an outline of main capacity building themes as a) background (overview and experiences) on participatory technology development approaches; b) tools for stakeholder mapping and analysis; c) design for FTI processes for identified ‘innovation packages’; and d) communication, interaction and process documentation skills for the FTI process. Though not explicitly articulated in
the work package, one of the implicit objectives was to expose the participating staff to, both the need and mechanisms of undertaking interdisciplinary research within the project. The structured capacity-building process had to be undertaken within the first fifteen months of the project phase, after which actual implementation had to start. The duration of these capacity-building events was initially foreseen to be around 7-10 days each (Martius et al., 2006; Mollinga, 2006).
These ideas of structured capacity-building were further discussed and elaborated into an FTI training plan (Table 4.1) between the author of the work package from ZEFa, project’s science coordinator from ZEFc, and project’s field coordinator29 from ZEFc.
Table 4.1 FTI Training Plan Main Theme (planned timing and
location) Contents
Training 1: Concepts of agricultural innovation and interdisciplinary research (February 2008, Bonn)
- Concepts of interdisciplinarity, hard and soft systems thinking, positivist and constructivist schools of thought
- Concepts of technology, innovation, adoption and adaptation Training 2: Participatory research
methods and communication styles (June 2008, Urgench)
-Participatory research and the roles of different actors. - The values and knowledge of different actors
- Issues of stakeholder involvement
- Issues of contextual factors and their influence on the nature of participatory research and dissemination and result utilization.
- Communication mechanisms among research teams -Develop a framework to report processes and results. Training 3: FTI research and activity
plan design (Urgench, 2009) -Identify promising innovations for the FTI research - Identify potential users and stakeholders, understand their specific situations, forming user groups, joint meetings between research teams and potential users to identify activities, define responsibilities, clarify procedures and institutional arrangements
-Develop monitoring and evaluation procedures
- Training on process documentation and systemic analysis of processes, experiences and lessons, user records (diaries, drawings) and researchers’ notes
-Basic monitoring and evaluation (indicators, monitoring methodologies and tools)
Training 4: First monitoring training/workshop (Bonn,
-Reflection and joint monitoring with inputs and observations by stakeholders: research teams, and users on implementation of the FTI research and the planned activities
-Further refinement of indicators, tools and procedures Training 5: Second monitoring
training/workshop (Bonn)
- Internal evaluation of the first year implementation - Reflection and improvement
-Design of the second year plans
-Discussion and possible inclusion of additional innovations into FTI process Source: Minutes of discussions on FTI training plan, July 2007
29 The outcomes of these discussions were reported in an internal note written by the social science author of the work
The discussion above suggests that the capacity-building plan devised by ZEF for nurturing interdisciplinarity within ZEF’s Uzbekistan project, contrasted sharply with usual ways of capacity-building for IDR in several ways. Firstly, it was not a single-shot exercise, like a one shot training workshop, seminar, conference, or a training course. Rather, it was a longitudinal program that aimed at gradual and incremental capacity- building. Secondly, it was accompanied by project-based learning through carrying out implementation activities within the teams as well as with the stakeholders. Thus, the trainees were required to put the knowledge and skills gained at these training workshops into practice during the implementation, learn lessons regarding the learned knowledge, and improvise the tools and skills that were taught to them. Thirdly, they were also required to critically reflect upon the taught knowledge, its relevance in their work and draw lessons regarding their team work, innovation in question and the innovation process.