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Co-producing knowledge, accelerating transitions. Lessons from a research intervention in experimental and participatory research projects
 

I'm a doctoral student in sociology at the Université Jean Jaurès de Toulouse, Ecole doctorale TESC. I work in the AGIR unit at INRAE Toulouse. My thesis is in Sociology of innovation and science and technology. During my studies, I obtained a bachelor's degree in Political Science and a master's degree in International Development Studies, attending the universities of Trento (Italy), Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France) and Wageningen (Netherlands). I work on impact assessment of participatory and experimental research (and non-research) projects. In particular, I follow two projects: Occitanum and TETRAE. I'm helping to steer them using the ASIRPA real-time formative evaluation method, conceptualized by the LISIS team at Inrae. Agriculture is a key sector for future transformations linked to climate change. For this reason, during my Master's degree, I specialized in rural sociology and will continue to work in this sector after my thesis.

• Starting date : 1st October 2022
• University : Université Jean Jaurès de Toulouse
• PhD school : TESC
• Scientific topic : Sociology
• Thesis management : Pierre-Benoit Joly, Agir, Inrae
• Thesis supervisors  : Mireille Matt, Agir, Inrae
• Funding: Région Occitanie
• #DigitAg : Labeled PhD – Axe 1 : Impact des technologies de l'information et dela communication sur le monde rural, Axe 2 : Innovations en agriculture numérique, Challenge1: Le challenge agroécologique, Challenge 6 : La gestion des territoires agricoles

Keywords : Evaluation, Innovation, Impact, Living Lab

Abstract: At present, little is known about how experimental and participatory research projects deliver on their promise of innovation, as their actual contribution to the intended transformations has so far been little studied. Similarly, there is no widely applicable evaluation scheme to capture essential information about the outcomes of these experimental and participatory projects and to guide the design of transition experiments. Therefore, based on Occitanum's digital innovation ecosystem, this research aims to answer the following research questions: How can experimental and participatory research projects foster innovation in the agro-ecological transition? In order to answer these questions, the research will draw theoretically on actor-network theory (ANT), as this approach enables us to study how networks of human and non-human actors articulate to foster innovation as a process.