A group of INRA researchers established a social apparatus ("dispositif") in response to a request from a Basque Country political body to participate in an initiative to strengthen the future of livestock grazing systems in die local hinterlands. The authors characterize the various categories of partners and the nature of the research partnership they set up. They analyze this collaborative process and the role of the researchers in the various committees and working groups that were set up. They emphasize the mutual learning process characteristic of their involvement and leading to action plans implemented by the research partners: sheep cheese qualification, rehabilitation of neglected areas and recognition of the diversity of farming systems and related activities. Attention to methodology and epistemology is crucial to this type of research involving a diversity of partners, as is the appropriateness of the apparatus to the openness of such a process.
