Agroscope, Institute for Plant Production Sciences IPS, Switzerland

Innovation mapping in plant production: the case of HOLL rapeseed

The Swiss plant production sector aims at maintaining its competitiveness, even in a liberalized economy. The research program ProfiCrops takes a look into innovations generated for the plant production sector. Innovations are a requisite for maintaining the competitiveness of the agricultural sector. A tool allowing to map innovations in the plant production sector has been created based on a literature review. A dozen criteria are hence proposed. They describe intrinsic characteristics of the innovation, the innovation process from the idea to the final product and the outcomes and impacts on the various groups of beneficiaries. This tool has been tested with HOLL rapeseed, a new product to which Agroscope has directly contributed. The results highlight some of the advantages and constraints of this tool and its use. The evaluation of outcomes and impacts requires a clear identification of the direct and indirect beneficiaries and of their behavior. The proposed tool allows to gain a synthetic overview of the innovations’ portfolio generated by research. It could then be used to formulate recommendations aiming at enhancing the adoption rate of innovations and also research efficiency.

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