Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. To help document recent experiences and insights, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently published a series of short innovation platform ‘practice briefs’ to help guide the design and implementation of innovation platforms in agricultural research for development.

This fifth brief explains what monitoring systems do for an innovation platform, who is involved, how it works, and what to do with the findings.

Monitoring helps spot innovation platform problems and make adjustments early

An innovation platform is defined as ‘a space for learning and change. It is a group of individuals (who often represent organizations) with different backgrounds and interests: farmers, traders, food processors, researchers, government officials etc. The members come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities and find ways to achieve their goals. They may design and implement activities as a platform, or coordinate activities by individual members.’

Monitoring aims to assess the functioning and effectiveness of innovation platforms to improve policy and practice, develop capacity and improve links among actors. The information it gathers can be used to improve the management of the platform and its activities, change policies, and promote larger scale changes. These changes occur at various scales—farm, community, market, watershed, policy, research, etc.—and with diverse actors. The monitoring system seeks to document and value these changes.

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