Competitive Grants Announced
Seventeen projects were awarded competitive grants by the Generation Challenge Programme. The full list of awardees can be found here: Successful_competitive_grants.pdf.
Commissioned Research Projects Selected
The GCP 2005 commissioned research portfolio was developed and proposals were solicited following the selection of the successful competitive grants. The commissioned research projects are led by GCP member institutes (full list: http://www.generationcp.org/consortiummembers.php) and are intended a) to compliment the research that will be carried out by the competitive grant awardees and b) to round out the GCP research plan to achieve our goal of putting the advances of molecular biology to work on the crops of the developing world. The full list of commissioned projects can be found here: 2005_Commissioned_Research.pdf.
EC Review Concluded
The two-person team from the European Commissioned concluded their review of the Generation Challenge Programme. Their presentation to the EC can be found here: EC_Presentation_16_Dec_2004.pdf. A written report will be available in the coming months. They emphasized the need for the GCP to articulate a more comprehensive delivery strategy for its products, but overall their feedback was positive and encouraging. The report represents the reviewers' preliminary views at the stage of having completed all visits and interviews. Recommendations are still being drafted.
Stakeholders Committee Meeting in Rome 29-30 November
The Stakeholders Committee of the GCP, comprised of NGO, farmer and producer organizations, regional networks, and private sector representatives, convened for the first time at FAO in late November to learn more about the GCP and provide input in our objectives, policies, and activities. The Committee volunteered to draft four reports covering issues of importance to the stakeholders they represent - GCP consortium membership, communications, output delivery, and GCP involvement with the private sector - to help guide the GCP in assessing and/or strengthening these areas, which they will present at their second meeting, in Chile in April 2005. Pending approval by the committee members, the meeting minutes will be made available shortly on the GCP website.
Programme Steering Committee Meeting in Rome 13-14 December
The PSC, made up of representatives from the GCP consortium member institutions, met at FAO in Rome last week to approve the GCP Annual Report and Year 2 Workplan. The PSC endorsed the GCP's progress and plans for 2005 and commended the GCP on a successful first year of operations. Pending minor revisions, the GCP Annual Report and Year 2 Workplan will be available on www.generationcp.org in early January. The minutes of the PSC meeting will also be available online shortly.
GCP Travel Grants for Non-GCP Member NARS
8 travel grants available for up to US $5,000 for non-GCP NARS scientists. Awards must be used to travel to a GCP (or related) workshop, or to visit a GCP member institute. Application criteria can be found here: http://www.generationcp.org/Call_for_Applications_for_GCP_TRAVEL_GRANTS1.pdf. DEADLINE for applications: 30 April 2005. Contact Ibti Vincent, GCP communications assistant (i.vincent@cgiar.org), for more information.
GCP Capacity Building Workshop Organizing Guidelines, Application Form, and Evaluation Form
Planning a capacity building activity or a workshop with NARS involvement in 2005? Check out these guidelines to help in your activity planning and quality assurance: latestnews.php?i=156. Contact Carmen de Vicente (c.devicente@cgiar.org), GCP Capacity Building Coordinator, with questions or for more information.
Global Developments in Bioinformatics: CIRAD Announces the Release of OryGenesDB, A User-Friendly Web-Accessible Resource of Public Sequence Information for Rice Reverse Genetics
The goal of the OryGenesDB information system (http://orygenesdb.cirad.fr) is to gather essential genomics data existing in rice, allowing a molecular geneticist to readily find insertion lines (T-DNA, Tos17, Ds) in genes of interest and to retrieve all the associated annotations related to these sequences. For more information about the database, please contact Christophe Perin (Christophe.Perin@cirad.fr) or (Manuel.Ruiz@cirad.fr). OryGenesDB was developed with the support of European Commission-funded Cereal Gene Tags project.
Announcements
The GCP website has a "Latest News" feature where we can post announcements about events, publications, etc. of interest to GCP members and the global genomics community. If you have an announcement you would like posted, please send it to Ibti Vincent (i.vincent@cgiar.org) for posting to www.generationcp.org.
Your feedback on this newsletter is much appreciated. Is this e-newsletter useful for you? Is there information that is not here that you would like to see? Please email Jenny Nelson with comments or questions. Be sure to check the website - www.generationcp.org - for updates!