Autonomous Innovations in Rural Communities in Developing Countries III-Leverage Points of Innovations and Enablers of Social-Ecological Transformation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

content in tables are little lengthy which can be describe concisely 

Author Response

              Thank you very much for the comment.

content in tables are little lengthy which can be describe concisely

    [response]    We edited the tables to be shorter and simpler by removing the redundant parts of the tables to make it more friendly for the readers (Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3).

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors investigated how emerging autonomous innovations in vulnerable sectors can help understand the transformation mechanisms of socio-ecological systems by identifying the characteristics and functions of LPs. The study is interesting, innovative, and highly relevant.

 

The work is well drafted and schematized. The topic is interesting and catches the reader's attention.  The transformation of centres into sustainable societies is a very hot topic in this period of the full climate crisis.  The paper follows a logical structure, first giving an overview of the literature, explaining the methodology, presenting the results, and discussing them. However, the Introduction section does not reflect the content very much. The introduction must give a taste of what we will meet as we go through the paper. Tip: add a section of the introduction that contains a short (2-3 lines) overview of the topic, and the research questions and introduce which methodology will be used.

 

 

The methodology section is not very clear. What do you do with the data? What approach do you apply in the study? Lines 180-189 are unclear. You can rewrite them, so they are easier to understand.

 

 

The results section is difficult to read for those who have not been able to grasp how the methodology works. Figures 2, 4 and 6 are confusing. Fortunately, the tables are able to express themselves more easily. Tip: Find a better way to project the figures so that all readers can understand them.

 

 The conclusions and results are supported by the premises in the introduction. However, the discussion section serves to provide an explanation of the results obtained. Comparing the results with other studies and giving a scientific explanation supports the empirical evidence. Here the explanations are there, but there are no links to other works that give them a scientific basis.

 

the paper is interesting. it is well written and smooth to read. Despite this, it has some shortcomings. The methodology is not clear. It is not understood which approach they used and the rationale for the methodology is missing. Results and discussions do not reflect the standards of a paper. Despite this, the premises are interesting. If the authors applied the recommended modifications and enriched the methodology, results and discussions sections in more detail, it could be considered for publication.

Author Response

            Thank you very much for your valuable comments. 

The authors investigated how emerging autonomous innovations in vulnerable sectors can help understand the transformation mechanisms of socio-ecological systems by identifying the characteristics and functions of LPs. The study is interesting, innovative, and highly relevant.

The work is well drafted and schematized. The topic is interesting and catches the reader's attention.  The transformation of centres into sustainable societies is a very hot topic in this period of the full climate crisis.  The paper follows a logical structure, first giving an overview of the literature, explaining the methodology, presenting the results, and discussing them. However, the Introduction section does not reflect the content very much. The introduction must give a taste of what we will meet as we go through the paper. Tip: add a section of the introduction that contains a short (2-3 lines) overview of the topic, and the research questions and introduce which thodology will be used.

[response] We added a short explanation of the overview of the topic at the section of the research questions (Line 135 – 138) in the Introduction.

The methodology section is not very clear. What do you do with the data? What approach do you apply in the study? Lines 180-189 are unclear. You can rewrite them, so they are easier to understand.

[response] We added a short explanation on the approach and data sets at lines 159-162, and more details of methods and their rationale at lines 192-195, 227-228 and 260-261 referring to our previous papers. We simplified the lines 180-190 (lines 212-219 in the revised version) to make it clear.

 

The results section is difficult to read for those who have not been able to grasp how the methodology works. Figures 2, 4 and 6 are confusing. Fortunately, the tables are able to express themselves more easily. Tip: Find a better way to project the figures so that all readers can understand them.

[response] Methods section was improved to include details of approaches and data sets to clarify the linkages to the Results section. We modified Figures 2, 4 and 6, explained details of the figures on the captions referring to our previous papers, and added more details in the text to make them easier to understand for readers.

 

 The conclusions and results are supported by the premises in the introduction. However, the discussion section serves to provide an explanation of the results obtained. Comparing the results with other studies and giving a scientific explanation supports the empirical evidence. Here the explanations are there, but there are no links to other works that give them a scientific basis.

 [response] This is the third and last paper among a series of 3 papers submitted to the same special issue simultaneously. The first paper (published) aims to elucidate the general characteristics of autonomous innovations through the qualitative analyses. The second paper (accepted) applied graph theory and network analyses to develop the new definitions of leverage points to propose a new analytical method of the emergence mechanisms of autonomous innovations. The third paper (this paper) uses this analytical method to conduct comparative studies of autonomous innovations to produce generalized guiding principles to apply the research results to other regions. We agree with the reviewer’s comments to provide links with other works, especially on the original outcomes of this paper that have not been discussed in the previous papers. We added brief introductions of the relevant studies related to these outcomes and discussed their scientific implications at lines 433-435, 443-449, 463-468, 490-493, 505-506, and 536-540.

 

the paper is interesting. it is well written and smooth to read. Despite this, it has some shortcomings. The methodology is not clear. It is not understood which approach they used and the rationale for the methodology is missing. Results and discussions do not reflect the standards of a paper. Despite this, the premises are interesting. If the authors applied the recommended modifications and enriched the methodology, results and discussions sections in more detail, it could be considered for publication.

 [response] Thank you very much again for your constructive and stimulating comments to help us improve the contents of the paper. We sincerely hope the reviewer will enjoy the three papers including this one as a series.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for taking all my comments into consideration.