Effective research and development requires new forms of collaboration based on opportunities offered by willing stakeholders, and by the globalisation of scientific knowledge. The objective of the study that led to this article was to assess the research capacity of the Limpopo (Provincial) Department of Agriculture (LDA) in South Africa and to propose considerations for an effective collaboration model. The considerations were based on lessons from a crop-livestock collaboration project for which the impact was assessed using the Political-Economic-Social-Technological-Environmental-Legal (PESTEL) framework. As revealed by the PESTEL-based assessment, the implementation of the crop-livestock collaboration project had weaknesses, which included lack of involvement of all relevant stakeholders and poor social mobilisation, evident from demotivated and non-cooperating participants, and limited attention to policies and strategies. Bas