• Be organized to respond to the needs of today's students and tomorrow's;
• Bring research and engagement into the curriculum and offer practical opportunities for students to prepare for the world; and
• Put its resources—knowledge and expertise—to work on problems that face the communities it serves.
Engagement, two-way outreach and civic service are all critical elements of public university missions, whether specifically included in the mission statement or not and are defining characteristics of the public university of today and tomorrow (Kellogg Commission, 1998)
6.3.4.2 Innovative education and research models
It was noted earlier that there are many obstacles, both personal and institutional, to the achievement of greater and more genuine interdisciplinary research and education in the AKST fields (Box 6-12). Similarly, there are major learning experiences, both personal and institutional, to be undertaken within AKST institutions that adopt or profess a commitment to become more "engaged," if we are to ensure that really interactive two-way knowledge exchange and development actually occurs. The potential partners in the "engagement" process also require support in learning to develop their skills to participate in, contribute to and benefit optimally from the new interactive knowledge networking with the engaged institutions.
There are already numerous examples of establishing such networks, some quite formal, some informal, which can have their origins either from AKST invitations to engage, from farmers who share a common problem or from a local NGO that identifies a local public good or environmental issue, for example. Indeed, networks can arise in the context of frustrations by farmers and by researchers/educators with the more traditional unidirectional delivery of research and extension services under existing institutional arrangements.
Many of these innovative education and research models show that successful development and application of innovative agricultural knowledge, science and technologies can be significantly improved by introducing more active collaboration between farmers, researchers, extension agents and other educators. Such collaboration, if it is to be most successful, begins by dispensing with the assumption that formal researchers and educators necessarily already hold the most useful and important knowledge. There is recognition that farmers and other practitioners not only have useful knowledge but that they can participate actively in formal, scientific research. The mutual learning that can occur among groups of farmers, researchers, extension agents and teachers can result in important innovations that are more readily accepted and applied by practitioners and that form a firm basis for further research (Box 6-12).Through participation by well-qualified researchers, farmers are able to sponsor and actively participate in producing rigorously scientific research results publishable in peer-reviewed journals.
It is essential that a greater level of support be provided for the more active and widespread promotion of a variety |
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Box 6-12. An example of innovative education and research model: BIFS
Innovative models can range from informally organized "farmer circles", (which invite academic and/or extension personnel as resource persons), to a variety of more formally organized and funded programs such as the Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) Program in California, whose projects involve farmers, University of California Cooperative Extension researchers, federally funded research staff, conservation organization staff, and private sector consultants. Originally begun to attempt to solve some of the seemingly intractable problems of heavy pesticide dependence in some orchard crops, the program has been extended to a wide variety of other crops, including row crops, ranging from cotton to melons. The program has developed innovative solutions that have reduced dependence on pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, reduced environmental impacts, and improved farm profitability. It has also revitalized the relationship among farmers and research and extension staff and has improved positive interactions among farmers themselves. Projects have been successful among both small and large-scale producers.
Key elements of the BIFS approach include, in the slightly abbreviated words of BIFS evaluators (Mitchell et al., 2001):
• Experienced farmers who voluntarily share information about their production systems with other farmer participants, consultants, and researchers;
• On-farm side-by-side demonstration evaluations of conventional and alternative management practices;
• A small management team that provides technical assistance and project leadership made up of farmers, consultants, and academic researchers;
• Customized information support to facilitate evaluation of alternative production practices; and
• An emphasis on providing opportunities for "co-learning" environments in which farmers, researchers, and consultants share insights.
of innovative education and research models of this kind so that genuinely interactive knowledge networks can emerge. Such networks could be adapted to contextual issues and needs and to be effective they could receive the support from key people in relevant institutions required for them to become successful and sustainable relative to their purpose. It is essential that the networks always have the capacity to evolve as the needs and issues change. This could involve dissolution if their goals are reached or reconfiguring themselves into new or transformed networks as new needs and issues emerge in their spheres of influence.
Experiences of the variety of new and innovative education and research models which have been tried in NAE AKST could, in the short term, be collated and analyzed so as to identify success and failure elements, risk factors, |