A methodology for characterising innovation systems - revisiting the agricultural innovation system of Azerbaijan

Abstract

This paper develops a graph-theoretic methodology to characterise the agricultural innovation system of Azerbaijan. Key observations are fourfold. First, private consultancy is the most dominant, followed by external component, while policy is the most subordinate, followed by private farming. This implies consultancy acts as a 'knowledge broker' intermediating the flow of information-knowledge to the rest of the system. Second, the system organisations are clustered: {consultancy, external, marketing} is a 'dominant' cluster; {Information-extension, education, credit}, interactive; and {policy, farming, research}, subordinate. The dominant/sub-ordinate clusters together suggest innovation-research policies are endogenous to the developments in consultancy-external-private enterprise components. Third, organisations in the system are densely connected (i.e., clique) around policy-research-educationfarming- consultancy-external components, implying underdeveloped agricultural markets. Finally, research-consultancy-external components intermediate substantial part of the system flow. In conclusion, the findings suggest the design of innovation-research policy to incorporate the four observations made for an accelerated transition to an effective innovation system.