Following on from our recent announcement on GCP’s 3rd Call for GCP Genotyping Support Service proposals, we wish to update you on three key factors in regards to the submission process:
- Regretfully, due to unforeseen technical problems with our online submission system, proposals submitted between the period of 21st October and 17th November 2009 have been lost. Candidates who submitted proposals during this time are therefore kindly asked to re-enter the online system and re-submit their proposals.
- The Genotyping Service Request Agreement has recently undergone some important edits, with an updated version having been uploaded to our website on 17th November 2009. This new version, now three pages in total and available here, replaces the previous, two-page-long version. Participants who have started or submitted a proposal prior to 17th November 2009 are asked to use this newly updated Genotyping Service Request Agreement form when re-submitting their proposal documents. Submissions with the previous version of the form will NOT be accepted.
- With the system’s technical problems now happily resolved, we have extended the deadline for submission of proposals to 4th January 2010. This deadline applies to all interested candidates, and supersedes the 15th December 2009 deadline given in issue 41 of GCP News.
We wish to extend our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by these unexpected glitches in the GSS submission process, and thank you in advance for your patience.
More information on the GSS Call and on how to apply
From 20–23 September 2009, GCP researchers and partners gathered in the Malian capital of Bamako for GCP’s 2009 Annual Research Meeting. The event, whose 150-plus participants included both new and familiar faces from the GCP research community, followed a tightly-packed schedule: there were plenary and break-out sessions for formal presentations in which GCP collaborators demonstrated their latest project results; smaller, brainstorming/panel discussion groups for the exchange of views and research ideas; lively poster sessions; and a field trip, allowing for very positive interactions with farmers and research station staff.
Outcomes from the meeting, including presentations, poster PDFs, rapporteur reports and photographs are now available online.
Deadline for application
For the GCP’s GSS call, proposal submission is between 1st November 2009 and 15th December 2009.
The CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), in coordination and collaboration with the Global Crop Diversity Trust (the Trust), is pleased to announce its 3rd call for proposals for the Genotyping Support Service (GSS).
The GSS aims to help spread the benefits of marker technology in the developing world through the following objectives:
- Technology access: facilitating developing world researchers’ access to molecular marker technologies for germplasm analysis;
- Capacity-building: training researchers in data analysis and knowledge application;
- Sustainability and spread: to build a core of researchers who can continue to use the technology, independent of GCP support.
GCP launches this GSS call in alignment with the Trust’s call which focuses on supporting the evaluation of crop genetic resources. Together, these two complementary and coordinated calls widen the scope for applicants, by offering a well-rounded comprehensive programme.
Eligible organisations: include country agricultural research programmes, academia, civil society organisations and private companies. The organisation must:
a) have a functional breeding programme;
b) be located in a developing country (see Table 1 within the call);
c) be working on the crops listed in Table 2 of the call;
d) applicant organisations should be willing to incorporate the use of molecular maker technologies with a long-term perspective, ie, demonstrate readiness to take the necessary steps towards self-sufficiency in outsourcing genotyping work in the medium term.
Following on from searches carried out by both GCP and the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) , GCP is delighted to announce the winners of the PhD scholarship tenable at the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana. Each of the selected winners will be linked to one of GCP’s Challenge Initiatives (respective Challenge Initiatives – or ‘CIs’ – are indicated in brackets below). The students to be funded by GCP are:
- Teyiou Benoît Joseph Batieno of Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles (INERA), Burkina Faso (cowpea CI)
- Joseph Adjebeng-Danquah of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research–Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR–SARI), Ghana (cassava CI)
The winners will commence their five-year plant breeding programme in January 2010, and are expected to cover two years of academic study at the University of Ghana, followed by three years of field research at their respective research institutes or universities in their home countries.
The GCP/WACCI search also identified the following students, to be funded by WACCI:
- Uzoma Chizoba Okechukwu of the National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Ibadan, Nigeria (though currently carrying contracted at the Africa Rice Center in Cotonou, Benin) – cassava CI
- Alice Jelimo Kosgei of Embu Agricultural Staff Training (E.A.S.T) College, Kenya (chickpea CI)
Please join us in congratulating the four winners, and in wishing them the very best in their forthcoming PhD studies.
In the stepwise approach adopted for reforming GCP governance, an amended version of the GCP Consortium Agreement has now been signed by the mandatory three-quarters of the parties to the Agreement. The coming into force of the Amended Consortium Agreement (ACA) dissolves the Programme Steering Committee (PSC) and now formally establishes the GCP Executive Board as the peak governance body. In addition, effective September 2009, a new body – the GCP Consortium Committee (CC) – whose members comprise representatives of parties to the ACA, will replace the PSC. However, unlike the PSC which had a governance role, the CC will assume a primarily advisory scientific role in interacting with the GCP Management Team.
The implementation of these reforms marks a fundamental change in GCP’s governance, to increase and further streamline the efficiency of GCP research activities, and to improve support to GCP science. These changes also comply with the recommendations of external reviews.
Relevant links
Researchers of GCP’s Tropical Legumes Improvement project have developed a high-density consensus genetic map of cowpea, accelerating conventional breeding and facilitating the production of new varieties of not only cowpea but also other legumes such as soybean and common bean. Results of this study can be found in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are also highlighted in a University of California–Riverside press release.
To view both the published paper and the press release, please visit our Tropical Legumes Improvement publications page.
To view more publications resulting from other GCP projects, please visit our Research publications page.
Results from the 2008 Annual Research Meeting (ARM) survey, which was administered online (via Survey Monkey) over a roughly 2.5 week period between September and October 2008, are now available online.
In a marked difference to the 2007 ARM survey, which was divided into sections covering both ARM and also general GCP issues, this survey focused entirely on the Annual Research Meeting held from 16–20 September, in Bangkok, Thailand, with the exception of one open, non-ARM-related question, which addressed the crucial subject of future investments, as follows:
“One of the purposes of the ARM is to map and/or validate future directions in terms of GCP’s investments in research. From what you gathered at the ARM, please state one clear area that you consider GCP should invest in as a top priority.”
Clustering the open-ended responses, we can report that nearly half of the respondents (44%) indicated breeding tools as the top priority for future investments.
To view other sources of feedback on GCP research quality, please visit our Reviews and Evaluations page.
Ousmane Ndoye was recently appointed Director of the Centre d'Etude Régional pour l'Amélioration de l'Adaptation à la Sécheresse (CERAAS) in Thiès, Senegal. Ousmane is a Principal Investigator in GCP’s Subprogramme 3 and also a collaborator in the Tropical Legumes I project. He was previously Director of Le Centre National de Recherche Agronomique (CNRA) at l’Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) in Bambey, Senegal. GCP congratulates Ousmane for this exciting development in his professional career, and wishes him the best in new role.
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