Nick T. Place
Department of Agricultural Education and Communication
Managing Innovation; a Collaborative Course between the University of Florida
and CIAT in Columbia
Participatory approaches and methods are increasingly a feature of professional activity in a broad range of contexts including agricultural research, rural development, extension education, watershed management, health and education, local government and public administration. Knowing how to facilitate local initiatives and innovativeness is important for effectiveness whether the objective is to conduct research, manage projects or actively promote change. In addition to mastery of technical fields of expertise, professionals can be called upon to facilitate and actively manage participation with clients or beneficiary groups, and this requires familiarity with a body of knowledge and skills that integrate applied social research with other disciplines.
The planned course will draw upon applications in rural development, agriculture, small enterprise development and natural resource management will be drawn from international and domestic experiences. The content will be covered in the framework of planning, implementing and evaluating the co-development of technical and organizational innovations with intended beneficiary groups in which one of the key roles of professionals is to facilitate local empowerment. This is designed as a course on basics for social and non-social scientists who want to understand and apply participatory methodologies in an innovation process and how to use the tools in practice. The course will bring a unique dimension to current course offerings by providing a unique opportunity to create linkages between students at the University of Florida and students from several other countries. This will provide an excellent means for internationalizing a course and to establish learning relationships for students from UF and multiple other countries in a teaching setting. In turn, it is expected that this course will stimulate interest among students to further pursue international courses, programs and/or careers. The partnering instructor, Dr. Jacqueline A. Ashby; Director, Rural Innovation Institute; CIAT-International Center for Tropical Agriculture; Columbia, is recognized around the world as the top expert on this topic. This course would give many students the opportunity to interact and learn from a global expert who is not located on the UF campus.