 |
|
Designing Site and Regional Research
Regional research and development (R&D) programs are faced with a challenging mandate of balancing diverse tasks. Some of these challenges are illustrated by the need to:
- Enable bottom-up learning while integrating research agendas and findings regionally,
- Generate a flexible learning culture at all levels while maintaining rigour in research,
- Develop a mentoring system in which mentors are also learning, and
- Enable change at local, site and regional levels when each level believes its task is to bring about change at other levels.
AHI has made progress toward operationalizing a regional research agenda that is at once rigorous and flexible, bottom-up and regionally integrated. The first step in the generation of research questions involves site-level brainstorming with "gap facilitation." In AHI, interdisciplinary site teams work with members of a regional research team to develop approaches through participatory problem diagnosis and interdisciplinary analysis. Regional research team (RRT) members are chosen strategically to complement site team expertise (in this case, social science and systems agronomy). As RRT members travel to diverse sites, new ideas emerge which integrate site-specific realities and the creative thinking process of the other teams. After one iteration, a regional synthesis of experiences (research questions, methods, insights) by the RRT is carried out and brought back to site level in oral or written form. Carrying out and feeding back the regional synthesis to the sites enables cross-fertilization between sites and peer review. The new ideas brought to site level are then scrutinized (selected or rejected), and then field-tested. Once they pass the scrutiny of field-based testing, they are fully implemented at site level. Synthesis of final research questions across all sites leads to the generation of a regional research framework, which may include a synthesis of approaches (facilitation, diagnosis, etc.) or findings from empirical research conducted. This process is depicted in Figure 1.
Regional questions are those that address higher-level questions (generally on the approach under scrutiny) that can only be addressed through a comparative perspective. The following framework is used to organize the regional research framework resulting from this iterative design, testing, synthesis and validation process:
| STEP of watershed work |
PROCESS (ACTION) RESEARCH QUESTIONS ("Let it happen," "Learn as you go") |
EMPIRICAL/FORMAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS ("Pre-planned") |
|
Site research questions |
Regional research questions |
Site research questions |
Regional research questions |
| Question |
Process documentation areas |
|
Table 1. Framework for Structuring Site—Regional Research Linkages |
|
|
