Reflexive Monitoring in Action. A guide for monitoring system innovation projects

“Researchers at Wageningen University and the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, have been working together on a type of monitoring that they have called reflexive monitoring in action (RMA). RMA has been developed especially for projects that aim to contribute to the sustainable development of a sector or region by working on system innovation. Sustainable development demands simultaneous changes at many levels of society and in multiple domains: ecological, economic, political and scientific. It requires choices to be made that are radically different from the usual practices, habits, interrelationships and institutional structures. But that is precisely why it is not easy. System innovation projects therefore benefit from a type of monitoring that encourages the ‘reflexivity’ of the project itself, its ability to affect and interact with the environment within which it operates. If a project wants to realise the far-reaching ambitions of system innovation, then reflection and learning must be tightly interwoven within it. And that learning should focus on structural changes. RMA can contribute to this. In the guide, -aiming at supporting the work of project managers, monitors and clients-, the authors present the characteristics and the value of Reflexive Monitoring in Action, together with practical guidelines that will help put that monitoring into practice. At the end of the guide the authors provide detailed descriptions of seven monitoring tools.”