Information only becomes useful when internalized as knowledge. Knowledge is itself dynamic. It derives from the actions and interactions which we all experience every day. Innovation derives from the interaction and knowledge of multiple actors within a context. Turning knowledge into innovation and development practice and outcomes is
complex, context specific and cross-cut with many social, cultural, economic and environmental considerations.

This relies on the interaction of many partners, yet these interactions are constrained by control of information, awareness of opportunities and ideas, the media in which information is presented, its accessibility and whether the messages are too simplistic for a particular context or, conversely, too complex to be assimilated and used.
Alongside these, attention must be paid to its intelligibility and format, its relevance, the institutional barriers constraining the sharing of knowledge, belief systems and individual, institutional and societal attitudes to change.

True innovation relies on the interaction of multiple knowledge sources, requiring more than any one individual or institution can bring. It requires the ready exchange of information from different sources and the knowledge and innovation of many different stakeholders, in particular those who can broker linkage between scientific andsocietal forms of knowledge.

How can we better link innovation from science and society as a true "social endeavour", contributing directly to development?

Bridging these knowledge gaps is a key focus for GFAR, bringing the value of a global multi-stakeholder network in sharing information, knowledge, inspiration and innovation swiftly and readily around the world and in a range of media and forms. This is a key area for GFAR’s operation as a global mechanism underpinning change and innovation among all its partners.

Specific objectives

I. Creating coherence between information systems for agricultural research for development: participants in the Information Systems for Agricultural Science and Technology (IISAST) initiative have now formalized their partnership and established the Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) initiative, the main objective of which is to make agricultural research information publicly available and accessible to all.

II. Strengthening regional agricultural information and learning systems: one important result of the ICM4ARD programme has been the establishment of Regional Agricultural Information Systems (RAIS, see a list in our Web Links page) and the involvement, at the regional level, of National Agricultural Research Information Systems.

III. Sharing knowledge through the use of internet based tools and fostering debate on key issues on sharing and exchanging agricultural information and knowledge globally

IV. Enabling ‘blended’ learning by linking ICTs to community learning processes for agricultural development.

The CIARD RING

The main project led by the Forum as part of its information and communication management work is now the Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING), endorsed in 2008 by the CIARD initiative.
This Routemap consists of a registry of existing information services in ARD, indexed and described in a way that makes them more easily "exploitable" for building value-added integrated services. The idea behind this is that it is difficult to build value-added services without knowing what has already been done, which sources are available and how to tap into them: the CIARD RING is going to provide this “missing link” between existing services that are not aware of each other and between existing services / sources and the foreseen value-added services that can be built on top of them.
See the CIARD RING page for more information.

e-GFAR is one of the gateways that will be registered in the RING: as a gateway, it gives access to a range of valuable resources including websites, databases and documents.
You can access the e-GFAR ARD Gateway through this link or through the “The gateway to knowledge” link on the left-hand side of this page.

More information on GFAR's work in ICM and knowledge sharing is available in the "Coherence in AIS" section of the Open Site, the ICM4ARD Partnership Programme page, and the GFAR Documents on ICM in our Publication area.