Institutionalising Knowledge: PRADAN’s Journey from Practice to Research

-Dibyendu Chaudhuri, Integrator, PRADAN

Development is driven not only by action in the field but also by the ability to learn, document, and share what works. This article traces PRADAN's evolving journey from an implementation-focused organisation to one that places research and knowledge generation at the heart of its mission to scale impact and facilitate development practices.

How the Idea Evolved

PRADAN was set up in 1983 with the goal of bringing technical and managerial expertise to the development sector. At the time, the sector was largely driven by voluntary efforts and social commitment. However, in many cases, programme design, technical execution, financial management, and accounting practices had limited professional approach.

Very soon, PRADAN realised that professionalising development practice required more than managerial efficiency or technical expertise. It required a deep understanding of economically underserved communities and the development of models and prototypes that could sustainably improve their economic conditions.

With this realisation, PRADAN began working closely with rural communities across diverse geographies. Field teams were formed in different regions to experiment with livelihood models grounded in local realities. After almost a decade of work, PRADAN developed several prototypes with the potential to help economically disadvantaged households earn better incomes. These included the broiler poultry enterprise model in Narmadapuram district (earlier known as Hoshangabad) of Madhya Pradesh, water harvesting and soil moisture conservation models in Purulia district of West Bengal, and tasar sericulture in the Santhal Pargana region of Jharkhand (erstwhile part of Bihar).

Over the following two decades, PRADAN expanded its operations primarily by scaling up these models and adapting them to different contexts wherever necessary. The organisation gradually built a strong identity as an implementing agency capable of designing and delivering effective livelihood models across agriculture, horticulture, irrigation, land development, sericulture, poultry, and related sectors.

It also initiated women’s collectives and community organisations such as self-help groups SHGs) and user groups. PRADAN and Myrada pioneered in establishing the SHG model in India during the late 1980s and early 90s across their respective work areas.

However, while these experiences significantly influenced development practice and public programmes, they were not always systematically documented or converted into evidence-based knowledge products by PRADAN. For example, when SHGs were later scaled nationally through government programmes such as Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY- NRLM), much of the documentation and institutional knowledge came from external agencies and state systems rather than from PRADAN.

Research and Documentation in PRADAN

Although, from its inception, PRADAN maintained a strong focus on study and documentation, and this eventually evolved into a Research and Resource Centre (RRC) in the mid-1990s, knowledge generation remained largely peripheral to PRADAN’s core institutional identity. Research and documentation activities were often outsourced, undertaken in collaboration with external researchers, or conducted as part of studies designed by others. As a result, the research function remained somewhat isolated from the organisation’s mainstream practice and decision-making.

PRADAN’s internal institutional discourse largely revolved around two identities: whether it was fundamentally an implementing organisation focused on the mission of ‘supporting people to improve livelihoods’ or a human resource development organisation committed to ‘building people to build people’. PRADAN’s identity as a knowledge organisation never emerged as part of this discourse.

Institutionalising Research: Creating Scope for Scaling Through Knowledge Conversion

The situation began to change with PRADAN’s Perspective Plan for the period 2023–2030. Under this vision, PRADAN set itself the goal of reaching 50 million individuals and improving their livelihoods by 2030, a more than threefold increase over its current outreach of 15 million people. This aspiration emerged from the confidence gained through decades of institutional experience, field engagement, and accumulated practice-based knowledge.

PRADAN’s strength lies in the fact that its knowledge emerges from grounded experience and daily engagement with communities, mobilising people, strengthening community institutions, addressing exclusion, and improving livelihoods. Such knowledge often takes the form of technical or social innovations, or even new approaches to development practice. However, much of this knowledge has remained tacit; deeply personal, context-specific insights and practical “know-how” acquired by field practitioners through years of experience.

At its core, scaling up is the diffusion of ideas, practices, institutional arrangements, and approaches through state and societal systems. However, for ideas to travel across systems and influence action at scale, they must be compelling, credible, evidence-based, and easily communicable.

The systematic conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit, structured, documented, and easily communicable knowledge is crucial for making ideas credible and enabling the scaling of innovations and approaches. Achieving this, however, requires every PRADANite to contribute to knowledge generation, bringing research and evidence-based knowledge from the periphery to the centre of PRADAN’s institutional identity. Strengthening PRADAN’s internal research and knowledge capabilities thus becomes essential, rather than relying primarily on external expertise.

The journey towards PRADAN as a knowledge organisation

The journey began with a series of consultations and interviews with eminent researchers, practitioners, and academicians to understand how PRADAN could contribute to the field of research and knowledge generation. While these experts offered different perspectives and entry points, there was a striking consensus on one point: PRADAN must invest in generating and disseminating the research and practice-based knowledge accumulated through its 40 years of immersion in some of India’s remotest rural geographies.

As part of the process of finalising the Perspective Plan for its work units and functions to achieve Vision 2030, PRADAN constituted an internal group to reflect on these inputs and chart a way forward. Drawing on insights from the expert consultations and internal deliberations, the group developed PRADAN’s Research and Knowledge Generation Strategy to support the achievement of its Vision 2030.

Three initial pathways for institutionalising research and knowledge generation were identified.

The first was to position PRADAN as an organisation with credible research capabilities by addressing critical knowledge gaps in the sector. One of the most significant empirical manifestations of this is the periodic Status of Adivasi Livelihoods (SAL) reports. Drawing on over four decades of deep, immersive grassroots work with Adivasi communities across the Central Indian Plateau, the studies combined large-scale household surveys (around 3,000 per state), focus group discussions, interviews with Adivasi leaders, and reviews of secondary literature. The study expanded PRADAN’s own understanding of Adivasi livelihoods beyond income to include the interplay of worldview, culture, natural resources, institutions, and development interventions in shaping livelihood decisions and outcomes. SAL transformed the voices of Adivasi communities into publicly accessible evidence. Its growing acceptance among academia, civil society organisations, and the media demonstrated how systematic research can contribute to the wider development discourse. SAL also established PRADAN’s credibility in research and opened opportunities for collaboration with donors, researchers, and other partners.

The second pathway involved embedding research as a strategic resource for programme development. Rather than treating research as an isolated function, it was used to generate insights that directly shaped programme design. Studies on regenerative agriculture, for example, revealed that farmers were motivated not only by income but also by concerns related to soil health, human health, food, and sustainability. The same study also showed that the timely availability of quality bio-inputs had constrained adoption, necessitating a market study on bio-inputs. The findings from this study informed the strategy for developing localised bio-input production ecosystems through Bio-Resource Centres (BRCs). Similarly, studies on extreme poverty and livelihoods helped move beyond an income-based understanding of poverty to examine exclusion rooted in unequal access to resources, as well as discrimination based on gender, caste, and ethnic identity.

The third pathway was the institutionalisation of concurrent evaluations of key projects. Moving beyond end-of-project assessments, a framework of baseline, midline, and endline evaluations was adopted to create continuous learning loops. This generated evidence for course correction while also producing insights into what worked, what did not, and why.

These efforts represent a deeper institutional shift. Historically, PRADAN’s identity was rooted in action and implementation. The research and knowledge initiatives reflect the recognition that influencing development processes at scale requires not only effective practice but also the ability to generate, validate, document, and disseminate knowledge. The emerging vision is one in which every PRADANite contributes not only to implementation but also to learning and knowledge creation.

Research should no longer be a peripheral activity. It must become central to PRADAN’s efforts to convert decades of tacit experience into evidence, insights, and ideas capable of influencing development practice far beyond the organisation itself.