Analysis Of Innovative Capacities Of Nigerian Search Institutes

Agricultural innovations and diffusion of new technologies are important factors in developing countries’ quests for food security. National Public Agricultural Research, like much of development strategy, has bypassed the needs of small and marginal farmers and concentrated primarily on better-endowed regions, commodity-intensive production systems, and commercial crops. Small producers, particularly those operating in resource-poor areas, have benefitted much less from any technological breakthroughs in agriculture. In order to fight poverty and hunger, it is critical to review the status of public agricultural research institutes, typically considered to be the main driver of innovation and growth to address the multiple challenges faced by both researchers and farmers, and in the production of useful innovations and the achievement of development goals. The Innovative Capacities of12National Agricultural Research Institutes in Nigeria were measured according to the Indexes of Auditing Technological Innovative Capacities (TIC) of firms illustrated by Guan&Ma,2003, to ascertain the level of innovation capacity, and various other factors keeping researchers and research organizations in Nigeria from achieving greater innovation capacity and performance. The results of the analysis of the seven TIC’s indicators, particularly measuring the Technological Innovation of sample institutes, illustrate that the Resource Exploiting and Organizational Capacity ranked lowest; implying that the government freeze on hiring of research staff in all institutes surveyed, the incoherence in organizational structure to be able to restructure mission and vision of the institutes in accordance to their specific mandates governing their creation has been static in the face of an increasingly changing environment where they operate; and the lack of available manpower and or capital to run the institutes efficienctly were below par. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) within institutes in both their Invention Capacity and Strategic Capacity; which illustrates that the synergy between structure, operating contingencies and flexibility of the institutes and their ability to transform R&D results into products, which meets the needs of the agricultural value chain for surveyed institutes were same according to the results below average; which according to Tidd et al,2011is to be noted for organisations with great innovative profiles. With strategic capacity having no significant difference between groups, it suggests a dismal attitude of institutes towards collaborations on innovative projects, either formal or informal, with other external actors (horizontal co-operation), subprojects, input providers (vertical linkages) or with other research organisations, which from the study was due to lack of finance and the centralised structure of National Research systems in Nigeria. The TIC for Extension Capability, R&D capability and Learning capability were quite high and suggests that although the institues may have performed below what was expected, there was an attempt to place better value in current and future needs of clients in the agricultural value chain who use up their output. It further illustrates that even though they may have been faced with various challenges, the institutes still try to embrace novel technologies and approaches in developing assets; and they are able to identify, assimilate and exploit knowledge from the environment where they operate through various learning and sharing experiences available to them. Technology development, which in itself shows the innovative capacities of research institutes, requires not only early interaction between farmers and researchers but also an increased focus on building and maintaining effective extension systems. Results indicated that having a competence in one of the various TIC’s alone cannot guarantee innovativeness. An interesting note from the research is that there are no significant differences in core innovation assets (a capability set of R&D and Extension), but significant differences in supplementary innovation assets (a capability set of learning, and organizational, resource, and strategic) between samples do exist. The foregoing, agrees with findings by Teece,1986; Adler and Shenbar,1990. As identified from the study, strong Strategic and Learning Capacities would enhance the innovation capacity also known to be the supplementary assets. The Learning Capacity polled second most important TIC and a helpful variable, for institutes who have a capacity for expansion and are open to collaborative structures. However, the absence of R&D and Invention Capacities and the weak existence of Organizing Capacities can be further investigated. The research results in this study imply that the supplementary innovation assets (which from the research were identified as Strategic, Resource exploiting and Learning Capacities) are dominant in determining the performance of institutes and would aid researchers and research organizations in Nigeria in achieving greater innovation capacity and performance.