Context-bound knowledge production, capacity building and new product networks

This paper seeks to analyse a partnership-led veterinary vaccine initiative, the East Coast Fever Project, as a potentially new model of institutionally disembedded research and development partnership that functions in a developing country context. The paper is theoretically informed by work on knowledge and power within development studies, and partnerships and information within studies of innovation systems. This dual approach raises interesting questions and insights for understanding how research institutions function in a developing country context. The case study itself provides an example of a more 'complete' approach to innovation, understanding the need to both identify needs and priorities, and to engage with ways to market the vaccine. This new product network unconsciously speaks to many of the issues raised by studies of development and innovation and as a result is quite successful in navigating through complex institutional relationships and in building research capacity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.