Brigid Letty, a member of the Prolinnova International Support Team, was invited to attend a small conference at the University of Basel in Switzerland that took place from 25 to 27 September 2025. The “Grassroots Innovations as Incubators for Sustainability Transitions” (GIIST) Conference was organised by the research project titled “Ecovillages as Incubators for Sustainability Transitions” (EVIST). Brigid made a presentation titled “Grassroots innovations as incubators for sustainability transitions: the experiences of Prolinnova”, which she co-authored with Djibril Thiam, Joe Nchor, Chesha Wettasinha and Ann Waters-Bayer.
This conference required the authors to look at Prolinnova’s activities and concepts from a different angle because, within this group of scholars, grassroots innovation is defined as ‘networks of activists and organisations generating novel bottom-up solutions for sustainable development; solutions that respond to the local situations and the interests and values of the communities involved (Seyfang and Smith, 2007)”. While Prolinnova’s definition of grassroots innovations (and co-innovation processes building on these) differs from this, Prolinnova as a network that developed organically with the aim to transform agricultural research and development to be more responsive to farmers, could indeed be termed a “grassroots innovation” as defined by Seyfang and Smith (2007) and could be seen as a mechanism for incubating transitions towards a more sustainable future.
For more information, an extended abstract can be found here.
Reference: Seyfang G and Smith A. 2007. Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: towards a new research and policy agenda. Environmental Politics 16(4): 584–603, DOI: 10.1080/09644010701419121
