Scientific and Organisational committee
Marc Barbier and Marianne Cerf,
Claire Lamine(INRA SAD, France)
Boelie Elzen(University of Twente,
The Netherlands)Barbara van Mierlo and Herman Schoorlemmer (WageningenUniversity and Research Centre,
The Netherlands)Andrew Stirling(University of Sussex,
The United-Kingdom)Submission,
Contact and further information:marc.barbier@grignon.inra.fr
International workshop on System Innovation towards Sustainable Agriculture (SISA 2014)
1. General features
Participation is by invitation only. Participants will be selected on the basis of submitted abstracts. The format emphasises in-depth discussion and therefore only 15 to 20 papers will be selected. Participants without a paper will act as discussant at the workshop for one or two selected papers. Researchers, whose paper is rejected, may still be invited as discussant. Contributing postdoctoral colleagues are invited to present their research in the form of a poster in a poster session.
The invited participants will have a variety of disciplinary backgrounds such as Innovation Studies, Economics, Rural Sociology, Science & Technology Studies (including constructive and interactive technology assessment studies), Policy Studies (including studies of network governance, learning and the impact of regulation), Organisation Studies (including studies focusing on management of structural change and leadership) and Practices based Studies.
To stimulate ‘fresh input’ in the discussions a number of junior scientists (Ph.D students) will also be invited in addition to senior researchers. We also seek participation from policy-makers and representative of cooperative and professional networks.
2. Format of the Meeting
The format of the meeting is meant to stimulate in-depth discussion of various issues rather than having many presentations and only brief discussions. To achieve this, the key features are:
• Thematic sessions and Plenary sessions.
• Intensive interactions among a limited number of participants (30-35). All participants will have an active role, either as paper authors or discussants or both.
• Participation is by invitation only on the basis of submitted abstracts (for researchers) or known expertise (for policy makers).
• All papers are written and distributed prior to the meeting.
• Papers are not presented at the meeting but expected to be read beforehand.
• Invited discussants will present comments on papers to kick off the discussions. Two discussants are invited for each paper.
• The meeting consists of two kinds of sessions: 1) paper sessions focussing on a theme; 2) ‘harvesting’ sessions without a paper submission. The latter sessions aim at teasing out lessons for governance and to define a
further research agenda. They will summarise progress made at the conference and develop a clearer view on issues to discuss further. To kick of the discussion in the harvesting sessions, two persons will be invited beforehand to present their conclusions from the preceding sessions.
• Poster session
Depending on budget: Local costs (hotel, subsistence) will be borne by the organisers. Funding applications to fund travel as well are still pending. Check website for progress on this issue.