National Knowledge Management Research meeting "Made in Holland" (10)

Hendrik Kupper (Wageningen University): Knowledge policy in the sector Agriculture, Nature and Food quality

The sector ‘Agriculture, Food and Nature’ has always been characterized as an excellent knowledge infrastructure and showed passionate use of knowledge by farmers and gardeners.

However this has changed in the last ten years, initiated by the privatization of the knowledge institutes of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

Now a new knowledge system is growing. All sorts of collaboration between knowledge institutes, companies, community organization, education and government is developing.

The model of knowledge management in the sector looked like this:

Know why > know that > know how - which relates to:

Understand > control > do - which relates to:

Create > exchange > utilize - which relates to:

Fundamental knowledge (laws, theories) > technological knowledge (control/influence matter, people, organizations) > technical knowledge (recipes, etc.)

In the past knowledge flows through this diagram in a linear way, now in a more circular way. Three types of knowledge sharing can now be distinguished: knowledge flow, circulation and co-creation. These flows are called ‘knowledge arrangements’. A Knowledge Arrangement is an ensemble of different types of knowledge, represented by different actors (individuals, organizations, networks and artifacts) who interactively communicate to transfer, circulate or co-create knowledge, resulting in output, outcome and impact, regarding societal questions.
A Cop could be a representation of an arrangement.

Hendrik also made an interesting remark about ‘Knowledge representation’. It can be encoded, embedded, encultured, embrained, embodied.