This guide is a companion piece to the publication titled, “Success Factors for Commercializing Agricultural Research: Lessons Learned from Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation.”

One of the success factors identified in this report was “recognize that research is just one part of R&D. The development aspect also takes considerable time and resources.” This companion guide further elaborates on this idea and shows why donors developing commercialization projects for products developed in research institutions need to involve the private sector early on in the product development process. It describes common challenges faced by businesses in the product development stage; potential solutions to these challenges are currently being discussed by Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation and other stakeholders.

This guide assumes that the business and research institution have already reached an agreement about intellectual property, compensation, technology transfer and other legal and administrative aspects of the process.

Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation is a USAID-funded program that provides incentive-based grants to de-risk the upfront investments that are necessary to scale and market agricultural innovations for smallholder farmers. The program works toward this goal through partnerships with the private sector.