AGROSAVIA strengthens its commitment to impact generation and analysis

Mosquera, Cundinamarca. May 4, 2023. The culture of impact is the approach and alignment of our individual, group, and institutional work towards generating and analyzing the impact built by the actions we carry out every day. For Dr. Margarita Ramírez, Ph.D. Researcher of the Tibaitatá Research Center, "AGROSAVIA's higher purpose is directly related to the generation and analysis of the impacts built by the Corporation and is reflected in the transformations carried out in the territories, in producers, and in society. Therefore, the importance of the impact culture is focused on all of us directing our efforts towards achieving that higher purpose."

Thus, AGROSAVIA, EMBRAPA, and CIRAD have joined forces to develop the project Impact culture in agricultural research organizations: ¿For what and how? The aim is to compare the development of the impact culture in three institutions with different maturity degrees concerning culture and impact analysis issues. For this, timelines have been built, and surveys and interviews have been carried out to assess the state of the culture in each institution. Based on the analysis of this information, the required actions will be outlined to strengthen this culture in each institution.

For Genowefa Blundo Canto, CIRAD researcher, "Thanks to this project, we are seeing that although we are two very different institutes, we have had very similar experiences, but, at the same time, we contribute with different things. From CIRAD, we contribute with methodologies, especially ex-ante, namely, of construction and interventions that we have developed for some years, and, on the other hand, I would say that AGROSAVIA gives us a conceptualization of research that is much closer to the territory because there is precisely a much closer link, with all the transfer and linking work, and also transdisciplinary work. Therefore, we complement each other very well, and between the field and the theory, we are learning a lot from each other."

Within the framework of this project, two events were recently held. One in Bogotá and the other in Paipa. At the Bogotá event, held on April 17, 18, and 19, preliminary project results were shared, and proposals to strengthen the impact culture were analyzed. In addition, progress on preparing an article with the results recorded was achieved. The idea to continue with the alliance and follow up on impact culture transformation after carrying out actions to strengthen it was proposed.

Subsequently, the team of researchers from AGROSAVIA and CIRAD, together with researchers from the headquarters in Tunja, met with potato producers in the municipality of Paipa, Boyacá, on April 21 to evaluate the possibilities of adoption and potential impacts of Tricotec® for potato cultivation using the ex-ante methodology "Tejer Impacto" in Spanish or "Weave Impact." This is part of the pilots contemplated in the project aiming to participatively analyze the demands to formulate and develop projects and link capacity-strengthening technologies and processes of communities.

"Weave Impact" is a methodology for exploratory projects before being formulated, ongoing projects with possible offers, and projects with defined Technological Offers. To date, seven pilots have been carried out, and the workshop held in Paipa was the final one. With all these lessons learned, the research team is preparing a manual entitled "Weave Impact."

For Dr. Margarita, "It is relevant to highlight the importance of continuing with the alliances, strengthening the teams, and disseminating the results to the entire corporate community. AGROSAVIA commits to continue working on strengthening the culture of impact, as well as the ex-ante analysis with "Weave impact" and the ex-post analysis with Social Balance, and, if possible, with more detailed analysis of specific cases."