I am a PhD candidate at Wageningen University. I am conducting research on innovation network dynamics in agricultural netchains and the roles of innovation intermediaries. This research addresses the gap concerning how innovation networks evolve, providing some empirical evidence of different innovation trajectories of farmer groups, some of which have worked with different intervention approaches that seek to implement innovations in the potato netchain, in the highlands of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) intervention approach – with its Innovation Platforms - is one of the intervention approaches being studied, which is being implemented in the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site of the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme.
Innovation platforms were found to be spaces that enhance organisational ambidexterity capacity of innovation networks in potato netchains in Sub-Sahara Africa.