Abstract
Six key themes that emerged from the European Union (EU) funded LEARNing project designed to develop and test a systemic approach to research practice are reported. The focus was on the learning and knowing processes experienced by individuals, groups and institutions that emerges from collective action and results in changes in practices or in the potential to change practices of those involved. The authors, drawn by the idea that the key to understanding knowledge is to be found in ‘how we know what we know’, or, in other words, in the processes of ‘learning and knowing’ present these themes: processes, theory, evaluation, institutionalisation and social and professional practice as a basis for further innovation in the conduct of R&D and as a basis for future capability-building of researchers.
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Notes
- 1.
We use quotation marks here because from an Anglo Saxon perspective teaching has often become associated with the linear model and the transmission (of facts) metaphor. Jane Wilkinson, in an interview with Chinua Achebe (1992) addressed this issue: “You said recently that the label ‘The Novelist as Teacher’ has haunted you ever since you used it as the title of an essay in 1965.” Achebe replied: “You are right. …. I was not thinking of the kind of teacher who prescribes. A good teacher never prescribes, he draws out. Education is a drawing out of what is there, leading out, helping the pupil to discover…to explore.”
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Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the special group of people who constituted the LEARNing project. Their critical engagement, personal warmth and friendship made all that is written here possible. They included: Christophe Albaladejo, Rémi Barré, Marco Barzmann, Nathalie Couix, Nathalie Girard, Janice Jiggins, Sofie Kobayashi, Alex Koutsouris, Jozsef Kozari, Catherine Mougenot, Mark Paine, Jet Proost, Ewa Rockika, Niels Röling, Pierre Stassart, Severine van Bommel.
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Hubert, B. et al. (2012). Learning in European agricultural and rural networks: building a systemic research agenda. In: Darnhofer, I., Gibbon, D., Dedieu, B. (eds) Farming Systems Research into the 21st Century: The New Dynamic. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4503-2_9
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