The ISPC Science Forum (SF 2016) was held in April 2016 in Addis. Following up on that meeting, the ISPC is leading the preparation of a special issue to be published in the journal Agricultural Systems on the theme of “Agricultural research for rural prosperity: Rethinking the pathways”. The ISPC worked through various materials from the Forum to produce a list of 18 impact pathways for the CGIAR’s System-level Outcome 1 (SLO 1), linking agricultural R4D with poverty reduction in a results-based management format. The impact pathways framework was then used to generate an idealized “wishlist” table of contents for the special issue, proposing research papers that in most cases are intended to cover more than one related pathway.
The special issue will thus feature research papers and is not simply a “proceedings issue”; rather its aim is to explore the pathways through which agricultural research can have practical impacts on poverty, using evidence and perspectives from a range of disciplines and in many cases transcending conventional disciplinary boundaries. In addition to debunking myths, by identifying knowledge gaps and constraints or barriers that impede progress along the impact pathways, each of the papers in the special issue will suggest priority research questions, implications for research methods/design, and for necessary R4D partnerships.
The objective of the workshop was to present and critique outlines/brief summaries of proposed papers in the special issue to ensure that a coherent and reasonably comprehensive set of papers is achieved.
