Many municipalities want to invest in innovative economic activities but lack guidance on how to target such investments. This information gap affects municipalities unevenly, with resource-poor areas facing greater barriers. Based on HSRC work in the Karoo, Peter Jacobs and Mandy Booys discuss how information about innovation could be shared with municipal stakeholders.
Photo by Myburgh Roux, Pexels.
Research dissemination is an essential way researchers engage with stakeholders, who are targeted as intermediate or ultimate beneficiaries of research outcomes. In contexts where evidence-informed policy interventions are commonly accepted and prioritised, recipients may value the disseminated research findings, but they might also need guidance on how to use these outputs effectively to solve their societal problems.
HSRC researchers produced and shared local innovation status reports about the prospects for innovation-driven development in the Karoo region in 2021, followed by workshops in 2022. As part of the concluding steps of compiling the status reports, researchers conducted a series of regional workshops to reflect on what the documented insights meant for reimagining the future of local development in the Karoo, an ecologically fragile region beset by multiple development obstacles. During these feedback workshops, local stakeholders highlighted the importance of drawing on the status reports and datasets to define and realise their municipal development objectives. They also asked researchers to distil the findings, insights and recommendations into popular formats – including digital and print materials suited to different audiences – for dissemination to local audiences. These local requests to share evidence in user-friendly ways tested the responsiveness of science to municipal development planning and practice.
With financial assistance from the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), researchers developed an initiative to share the evidence. The dissemination process kicked off in July 2021, primarily to plan outreach activities, prepare fit-for-purpose knowledge products and co-produce engagements with municipal officials. Between May and November 2022, actual dissemination activities took place in four municipal districts in the Karoo, also involving the 16 local municipalities in these districts. The four districts – selected based on their representation of different socioeconomic contexts within the Karoo region – were in three neighbouring provinces: Northern Cape (Namakwa and Pixley Ka Seme), Western Cape (Central Karoo) and Eastern Cape (Sarah Baartman).
Convening and coordination of dissemination activities
Initially, the HSRC research team arranged the dissemination events. However, as the process gained momentum, municipalities and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) in targeted sites began taking the lead in convening events. This shift reflected increasing local institutional capacity and commitment to evidence-based innovation planning. In cases where SALGA convened workshops, their regional presence and established networks helped to attract diverse stakeholders. Municipal-led workshops, on the other hand, allowed for more focused discussions of local innovation priorities. Throughout this transition, researchers maintained their role as technical resources, presenting evidence and facilitating discussions while supporting local institutions in building their capabilities to lead innovation dialogues.
Dissemination approach: Local innovation through empowered participation
Models of research engagement differ. A once-off engagement to recruit respondents, for example, is unlikely to foster durable relationships compared to cases where researchers co-produce solutions with beneficiary stakeholders. Traditionally, knowledge producers often engaged end users after the research had been written up and packaged for dissemination. But even if stakeholders intensively engage with such outputs, the researcher dominates a process of top-down evidence sharing.
In recent years, participatory approaches have become popular. The Karoo case study exemplifies this approach through its emphasis on co-production and local ownership of the dissemination process. Participatory engagement happens when knowledge producers intentionally work with end users or beneficiary stakeholders before, during and after carrying out research. Every moment in the research cycle is thus a moment for broad stakeholder engagement and underpins the co-production of innovations. Such co-produced solutions require that knowledge producers embed themselves inside targeted beneficiary communities and forge constructive relationships. When stakeholders participate in research processes, transparent and appropriate principles must be followed for self-sustaining transformation. While these processes often face challenges related to power imbalances, ownership and accountability, a clear set of principles helps to foster equitable stakeholder involvement. In line with this goal, stakeholder involvement in research must be equitable and must strengthen their agency and empowerment.
Karoo evidence dissemination case study
With equity, agency and empowerment at the forefront, the HSRC research team split and simplified the Karoo innovation landscape report into themes that were relevant, accessible and useful for each district. Key messages zeroed in on five core themes:
- Innovation orientation: aimed at fostering innovation mindsets and capabilities, this quick view illustrates the readiness of municipal officials to embrace and champion innovation for local economic development.
- Innovation infrastructure: describes the quantity and quality of public infrastructure (ranging from internet connectivity to research facilities) that can support innovation-driven municipal development.
- Networking for innovation: documents the nature and scale of relationships and interactions among municipal stakeholders (formal and informal networks) that enable innovation for socioeconomic transformation.
- Innovation characteristics: a broad sketch of the nature and scale of innovation activities inside the borders of a municipality, such as new inventions or the diffusion of innovations brought in from outside the municipal borders.
- Resources for innovation: documents awareness and use of government support for innovation activities that can include finance as well as patent and copyright laws.
The research team synthesised findings and recommendations into accessible knowledge products, creating short booklets and pamphlets with user-friendly language and layouts. These materials formed the foundation for dissemination through multiple channels. Workshop presentations, email communiqués, briefing notes, pamphlets and voice notes were prominent ways to disseminate key messages. Participants at workshops received electronic versions of briefing notes and pamphlets alongside suggestions to distribute materials through their own networks. Emails and workshops also provided opportunities for stakeholder feedback on the substantive content and criteria above. To reach larger audiences beyond the targeted districts, a website is being developed to serve as a living repository of disseminated information.
The workshops targeted 150 participants, chosen to ensure representation across different governance levels while remaining manageable within resource constraints. Tables 1 and 2 below show the participant profiles, compiled from attendance registers collected at 12 workshops.
Table 1. Participant headcount (targeted and actual) in terms of spatial scope of their socioeconomic activities.
Source: HSRC
Workshops attracted 63% of participants from the local domain compared to the targeted 54%, indicating strong grassroots engagement (see Table 1). The participation of stakeholders who operate across the province signifies wider interest in evidence-sharing and opens prospects for expanding dissemination beyond the boundaries of the Karoo districts.
Table 2. Participant headcount (targeted and actual) in terms of stakeholder group
Source: HSRC
This view of participant profiles suggests strong interest among government officials in evidence for innovation-driven local development, with government participants forming 45% of actual attendees compared to 27% of the targeted share (see Table 2). While this high government participation is encouraging, the relatively lower attendance by entrepreneurs and civil society organisations suggests a need to strengthen outreach to these sectors to ensure their involvement in local innovation initiatives. Participants from the state have diverse roles in innovation-driven development, from leveraging innovation for public service efficiencies to acting as innovation brokers who aid non-state actors in exploring innovative solutions for municipal residents.
Conclusion
While municipalities and SALGA in the Karoo have embraced this norm of innovation-driven socioeconomic development, it is difficult for them to access fit-for-purpose evidence. Through step-by-step dissemination and participatory engagements with local stakeholders, this initiative bridged the evidence access barriers and empowered Karoo stakeholders to intensively use the status reports, short communications and data in their strategic decisions.
This dissemination initiative achieved modest outcomes in terms of the number of workshops hosted across four districts in the Karoo, headcounts of actual participants at each event and the range of evidence communiqués distributed. The success of participatory approaches, particularly in achieving greater reach and impact, demonstrates the importance of co-producing knowledge with local stakeholders. Municipal innovation brokers and stakeholder beneficiaries displayed a shared interest in the evidence and ought to be co-designers of dissemination for uptake and use of the evidence to benefit more municipalities. Dissemination forums initiated through municipalities, coupled with participation beyond targeted districts, resonate with the empowered participation approach to engaged research. Refined tools to monitor dissemination are a priority that can enhance user-friendly processes in future ventures.
Research contacts:
Prof. Peter Jacobs, a strategic lead, and Mandy Booys, a senior researcher, in the HSRC’s Equitable Education and Economies Division
