ILRI's Partnership Strategy and Management System

In 2003, ILRI published the new centre strategy for its research and development activities. This strategy moved away from the conventional view of research, as a rather linear and often isolated process, to the pursuit of impact as a driving force for research with the perspective of innovation systems as a framework. The strategy recognizes the complexity of innovation as a socio-technical process where both knowledge networks and networks of influence are central to success in a continuous transformation process. A new way of doing science is the consequence of this commitment to impact-driven engagement in research for development. Partnerships among multiple actors are at the centre of such an approach to science and ILRI’s strategy highlights working through partnerships. The goal of ILRI’s strategy emphasizes the integration of science, capacity building and partnerships as a vehicle for impact. After three years of implementation of the new strategy, ILRI Management recognized the need for an in-depth analysis of the state of its partnerships and initiated a Centre Commissioned External Review. An initial short study revealed that, whilst considerable progress had been made, the management of partnerships needed to move from a rather ad hoc approach to one that was more proactive and systematic. The Management decided to pursue the development of a more coherent partnership strategy and management system which aims at institutionalization and operationalization of effective partnership management in the organizational structures, systems and processes. ILRI anticipated that by the end of this development and institutionalization process, ILRI would have a much clearer understanding of its partnerships and would be in a position to improve their quality in partnership management at all levels, thereby increasing its efficiency and effectiveness.|The approach chosen to develop the partnership strategy focused on the commitment and ownership of ILRI staff. An internal task force was formed, guided by an external process consultant. The process included the analysis and conceptualization of experiences and perspectives of stakeholders (a survey was carried out), lesson learning from successful and failed examples and exploring approaches practiced elsewhere. Institutionally, the administrative systems were analysed in regard to their role in supporting partnership management and where necessary the systems were adapted. The product coming out of this analytical process by the task force is this guide to ILRI’s partnerships: a dynamic working document which will be regularly revisited and complemented as ILRI further professionalizes its partnership management with new instruments and mechanisms in a learning mode.|Some highlights|The partnership survey indicated that ILRI is highly appreciated as a partner for its expertise and scientific quality. However, in the clarification of roles and responsibilities and the involvement of partners from the start, ILRI’s partnership management was not seen as strong. Overall it revealed that the handling of the ‘soft’ issues related to communication and facilitating relationships needs improvement.| The task force was able to analyse and synthesize partnership work at different levels and develop concrete ways to improve partnerships and partnership management.| The process of the task force in itself was an innovation: instead of an expert consultant, ILRI staff analysed the issues and identified the requirements for change and then institutionalized changes through negotiating with the respective units. It was a process of development and simultaneous institutionalization of improved partnership management modalities.| In seeking to institutionalize changes, the task force adopted the principle of building on existing systems and strengths to enhance uptake, and avoided proposing overly ambitious new systems that would stress already stretched resources and risk not being implemented successfully or sustainably.| The task force developed an innovative framework to categorize partnership management, rather than partners per se: categorizing partners is the conventional way of looking at partnerships. This framework allowed the task force to distinguish clearly different ways of managing partnerships at the different levels and to develop appropriate instruments.| The outcome of the work has a high potential to professionalize ILRI’s new way of doing research through partnerships, thereby increasing its overall quality, effectiveness and efficiency.| This partnership strategy and management system has filled a gap in ILRI’s overall strategy and provides a methodology and approach towards its operationalization.