Participatory approaches to research and extension have received increasing attention in recent years, but their application has been mainly confined to specific projects outside of or on the margins of the large formal institutions meant to serve agricultural development. The challenge now is to integrate these approaches into the day-to-day operations of such institutions. In different parts of the world, pioneering efforts are being made to address this challenge. Some cases were documented and analysed in an international comparative study that culminated in a workshop in late 2001 on “Advancing Participatory Technology Development (PTD)” in the Philippines. In 2002, IIRR and ETC Ecoculture published a synthesis of the study-cum-workshop output, together with abstracts of the cases, in the booklet “Participatory Technology Development in agricultural improvement: challenges for institutional integration”. Now, a larger book has been compiled with edited versions of selected case studies that describe attempts to integrate PTD approaches into institutions of agricultural research, extension and education.
