Using a typology of innovation support services (ISS) makes it easier to answer questions such as: Who are the providers? What services do they typically provide? How is the service provided? What are the effects of the innovation support services? Find the answers in the typology report from the AgriSpin project.

The report “Typology of innovation support services” from the AgriSpin Scientific Team serves as a framework to better characterize the existing types of innovation support services.

On the one hand, the typology aims at providing an idea of the diversity of services appropriate to support innovation, and on the other hand, the typology makes it possible to better analyze the diversity of services observed in the cases covered by the AgriSpin Cross Visits.

The Who and the What?

According to the AgriSpin typology, innovation support services are characterized by being private actors, public actors, farmer-based organisations or third parties such as NGOs.

As to what services an innovation support service typically provides, they may include the following:

  • Knowledge and technology transfer
  • Advisory, consultancy and backstopping
  • Marketing and demand stimulation
  • Networking facilitation and brokerage
  • Capacity building
  • Access to resources
  • Scaling mechanisms stimulation

Learning histories

To give a full characterization of an innovation support service, AgriSpin proposes that any given service is also described and analysed through the learning histories of the cases. Some questions help the work with the learning histories along:

  • What were the types of services? How was/were the service(s) funded?
  • Who was/were the innovation support service provider(s)?
  • Who is/was asking for services (demand)?
  • At what stage of the innovation process? Especially regarding the critical moment/ problematic situation (conflicts, controversies, pressures)
  • What was/were the objective(s)/content of the service? What was/were the method(s)/ practice(s) used/applied?
  • What were the effects of innovation support services on the beneficiaries and the innovation process?

Read the report

Please peruse the typology report to study the framework for the analysis of innovation support services.

And read the news article about the synthesis report.