The management of institutional innovation: Lessons from transferring the land grant model to India

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Abstract
The US and India collaborated on a successful institution building programme in the 1950s and 1960s to develop capacity for agricultural education, research and extension. This paper analyses that process for lessons that might bear on efforts to build similar institutions in other countries. India was an especially favourable environment due to the sophistication of its scientific base, the openness of its leaders to institutional innovation, the presence of public sector enterpreneurs to mobilize support for reform, and a food crisis that made it urgent to find new technology. The US did not fund institutional changes that had little demand in India, but it did influence Indian preferences over the long run by creating several mechanisms to exchange information about the American land grant system. These exchange mechanisms enhanced India's capacity for agricultural science and, less often noticed, contributed to the political support essential to new institutions.