The Smart-In-Ag PhD meeting was organized on 23 January 2024 in a hybrid format. Prof. Henk Hogeveen welcomed the participants and highlighted the main updates of the project. He has introduced and welcomed Muhammad Ikhsan Sani, a newly selected PhD student from Telkom University under a BPI grant to work on sensor-based automatic dairy cattle health monitoring decision support systems.
During the meeting, research methodologies for studying the adoption and impact of smart projects were also discussed. Prof. Annemarie Wagemakers gave a presentation on Participatory Action Research, where the researcher is seen as an insider of the social system (unlike the classical research methodologies where a researcher is considered to be objective/external). Dr Marjolein Derks discussed the potential applications of the Participatory Action Research methodology in other projects such as the Living Lab (Mixed Crop) project and the long-term soil experiment of Wageningen Research.
Ibnu Budiman (PhD4) gave a presentation on Community-Based Causal Mapping (Causal Loop Diagrams) for analyzing the complex system dynamics in technology adoption, including understanding of drivers and barriers of adoption and the impact of the technologies. He has demonstrated the application of this method in understanding the interdependences and societal impacts of the different PhD projects to map and understand the overall societal impact of the Smart-In-Ag project.
The PhD candidates updated their progress and shared their publications and plans. Then, Prof. Iskandar from IPB University closed the meeting with remarks on the successful and productive Smart-In-Ag project, highlighting the number of publications by the PhD candidates, and the additional PhD students joining the project with co-financing and other Dutch-Indonesia collaborations.
Finally, the WUR colleagues had a delicious Indonesian lunch!