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Focus projects
The research, research support and capacity-building activities of the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) are carried out by Consortium members and other GCP partners, focusing on the mandate and target crops of the CGIAR. List of GCP projects: The link here will lead to page on ‘GCP Principal Investigators and projects’. GCP’s research framework is unique, composed of three complementary funding mechanisms—competitive grants, commissioned research projects and focus projects. These three mechanisms are well-suited to our agile funding system and also guarantee that GCP’s research portfolio is fine-tuned to the latest developments in the dynamic research-for-development world in which GCP operates. The rationale behind having a competitive grants programme is to have an externally refereed and transparent process to seek innovative approaches to solving difficult problems of immediate relevance to GCP and to attract new partners to the Programme. The purpose of a commissioned research programme is to assure that the full spectrum of the GCP’s agenda, as set forth in its Medium-Term Plan (MTP), is adequately covered. Thus, commissioned research grants cover research and research support areas not addressed by competitively awarded grants. Budget and activities for Focus projects are developed in close collaboration with donors based on specific requirements.
Acknowledging GCP
GCP researchers are under an obligation to acknowledge GCP support in publications, presentations and public awareness materials on GCP-funded and partially GCP-funded work or projects.
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The GCP Competitive Grants Programme accounts for roughly 50 percent of GCP’s total research budget.
Below is a brief summation of GCP’s competitive research to date:
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In mid-January 2008, GCP sent out its 3rd call for proposals for competitive research as an open call, also inviting non-GCP Consortium members to apply. Selection is ongoing. More
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Early 2006—2nd call for proposals, from which six competitive projects (of between USD300–400,000 per year) were selected in October 2006. The final approval of these Round 2 awards was granted by the GCP's Programme Steering Committee at the end of November 2006, and the Executive Summaries for the six projects can be viewed here. Unfortunately, due to delays in fund disbursement beyond GCP's control, the 6 second-round projects did not commence until July 2007. Delivery plans were developed in August 2007 during the project kick-off meeting.
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2004—1st call for proposals. Seventeen projects, each with an annual budget of around $300,000 were funded in Round 1, and launched in January 2005. All 17 projects were initially scheduled to end by January 2008, but some projects will extend beyond this date.
Full proposals Executive Summaries
3rd call for competitive research projects
In mid-January 2008, GCP sent out its 3rd call for proposals for competitive research as an open call, also inviting non-GCP Consortium members to apply. In total, 72 concept notes were received, of which 65 were eligible. The other seven did not comply with the eligibility criteria for the call. Every concept note was reviewed by at least two independent reviewers.
Taking into account the overall ranking score across the four thematic areas of the call (see below), and the number of concept notes submitted, 24 of the concept notes qualified for the next stage, which was developing a full proposal. The breakdown by theme was as follows:
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Theme 1: Tapping crop diversity to identify genetic factors for drought tolerance—6 concept notes
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Theme 2: Comparative genome analyses and new approaches to QTL and/or gene/allele discovery for drought tolerance—7 concept notes
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Theme 3: Traits to improve drought tolerance—7 concept notes
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Theme 4: Innovative breeding strategies for drought tolerance improvement—4 concept notes.
Full proposals were to be submitted by 20 June 2008. The top-ranked proposals for each thematic area were then be considered jointly by the review panel and final ranking done, taking into account the balance between thematic areas and proposal quality.
GCP is pleased to announce the following as winners of the 3rd round Competitive call:
- Theme 1: Tapping crop diversity to identify genetic factors for drought tolerance (2 winners selected)
- Theme 2: Comparative genome analyses and new approaches to QTL and/or gene/allele discovery for drought tolerance (3 winners selected)
- Theme 3: Traits to improve drought tolerance (3 winners selected)
- Theme 4: Innovative breeding strategies for drought tolerance improvement (1 winner selected)
Theme 1: Tapping crop diversity to identify genetic factors for drought tolerance—6 concept notes
1) G3008.01: Generating new wheat germplasm with enhanced drought/heat tolerance using AB genomes genetic diversity
- Lead institution: Agharkar Research Institute, India (PI: SC Misra)
- Brief outline of project: This project will focus on developing diverse synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) lines as sources of variation that can be used to test for drought tolerance. The investigators will develop these lines and then propose to use diversity array technology (DArT) to genotype and phenotype the lines in various locations, primarily in South Asia, so as to identify new alleles for drought tolerance
- Executive summary
2) G3008.02: Improving grain yield on acid soils by the identification of genetic factors underlying drought and aluminum tolerance in maize and sorghum
- Lead institution: USDA-ARS (PI: Leon Kochian)
- Brief outline of project: The research team has already successfully identified a major sorghum aluminium tolerance gene in a previous GCP-funded project. The team now proposes moving towards identifying other Al (aluminium) tolerance genes in sorghum and maize, as well as drought stress-related genes in the same two crops. This objective will be attained through a combined approach using candidate gene and whole-genome association mapping.
- Executive summary
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Theme 2: Comparative genome analyses and new approaches to QTL and/or gene/allele discovery for drought tolerance
3) G3008.03: Delayed senescence and drought tolerance in rice
- Lead institution: University of California, Davis (PI: Eduardo Blumwald)
- Brief outline of project: The project will explore a novel approach to increase drought tolerance in rice. It is premised on
the development of rice lines (Indica and Japonica) overexpressing an isopenthytransferase (IPT) gene under the control of a senescence activated receptor kinase (SARK). The approach is based on the finding that the IPT gene very efficiently confers drought tolerance to tobacco by regulating the cytokinin levels. - Executive summary
4) G3008.04: Drought from a different perspective: improved tolerance in rice through phosphorus acquisition
- Lead institution: IRRI (PI: Sigrid Heuer)
- Brief outline of project: This project will aim to identify and isolate the Pup1 gene in rice—a gene that promotes better root growth, even under phosphorous-deficient conditions. Two QTLs for drought tolerance will be combined with Pup1 in a droughtsensitive background, in order to develop adapted germplasm with increased tolerance to drought, as well as improved efficiency in phosphorous (P) uptake.
- Executive summary
5) G3008.05: Discovery and development of alleles contributing to sorghum drought tolerance
- Lead institution: Univ. Georgia (PI: Andrew H Paterson)
- Brief outline of project: To improve drought resistance in sorghum, the investigators propose to identify more markers, as well as novel markers. Using a different set of germplasm, the additive effects and epistatic interactions of stay-green QTLs will be assessed with regard to their effects on terminal drought tolerance (ie, drought during the terminal phase of the crop cycle). RNA of selected parents (drought-stressed) of a MAGIC population will be sequenced to identify novel SNPs and to study the genomic organisation of selected gene families that might confer drought tolerance.
- Executive summary
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Theme 3: Traits to improve drought tolerance
6) G3008.06: Targeting drought-avoidance root traits to enhance rice productivity under water-limited environments
- Lead institution: IRRI (PI: Rachid Serraj)
- Brief outline of project: This project will focus on one important aspect of drought tolerance in lowland rice—root growth to alleviate drought stress. Because root growth appears to be an area where little genetic gain has occurred, this project is expected to have impact on breeding by providing important basic understanding of the physiology and genetics of root function and plant adaptation under water-limited conditions.
- Executive summary
7) G3008.07: Basal root architecture and drought tolerance in common bean
- Lead institution: Penn State University, USA (PI: JP Lynch)
- Brief outline of project: The project proposes to addresses the problem of drought tolerance in common beans, a critically important protein source in Africa and Latin America. It deals with the key issue— in typical production environments—of how roots are to be manipulated genetically to meet the dual requirements of P uptake (shallow and intense rooting needed) and water uptake (deeper and much less intense rooting). The project will also identify traits that may affect both rooting depth and intensity.
- Executive summary
8) G3008.08: Breeder-friendly high-throughput phenotyping tools to select for wheat adaptive traits in drought environments
- Lead institution: ICARDA (Francis Ogbonnaya)
- Brief outline of project: The investigators propose to focus on developing breeder-friendly high-throughput phenotyping tools for wheat under contrasting drought environments (from summer to winter rain). The project will assesses a large number of target traits, which have all been shown to contribute to drought tolerance in different related lines and cropping systems. The researchers will attempt to define the traits contributing to the high yield of ICARDA’s elite drought lines, focusing on the important GxE relationship affecting wheat yield under different levels of drought.
- Executive summary
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Theme 4: Innovative breeding strategies for drought tolerance improvement
9) G3008.09: Breeding for drought tolerance in rainfed lowland rice for the Mekong region
- Lead institution: BRRD, Thailand (PI: Boonrat Jongdee)
- Brief outline of project: The investigators propose to test the hypothesis that drought tolerance in rainfed lowland rice is the result of adaptation to both anaerobic and aerobic growing conditions. The methods for testing the hypothesis through phenotypic evaluation of selected materials (rainout shelter and raised beds), identifying new traits and related QTLs, will be very useful for understanding drought tolerance in the Mekong region.
- Executive summary
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Background information on the 3rd round Competitive call
- Details on the 24 concept notes qualifying for full proposal development
- 3rd Competitive Call - Guidelines for PIs submitting full proposals
- Announcement of the 3rd competitive call (for information only: the call is closed)
Each year, the GCP management team develops a detailed Medium-Term Plan that specifies a range of activities and outputs to be completed over the next three years. Commissioned research projects are requested based on these activities and outputs, complimenting the already existent Competitive Projects. The Commissioned research projects are typically one- to two-year projects, with an annual budget ranging between US$20,000-300,000. Essentially, they are designed to add value to the array of genetic and genomic resources publicly available through GCP by addressing a specific need, or collating outputs from research projects.
The Subprogramme Leaders develop brief project descriptions of the activities envisioned, the expected outputs, an indicative budget, and a timeline. The full management team reviews and agrees upon the identified projects as well as the proposed project team. The Subprogramme Leaders identify individuals whom they believe are best suited to assemble a team of scientists and other experts (from within and outside the GCP Consortium) to undertake a commissioned project. The performance of Consortium members as determined by their reporting in the Annual Research Meeting and other indicators of commitment and capacity are critical to the development of activities and the identification of teams. The identified project leaders are invited to develop a work plan similar in nature, detail, and rigor to those developed for the competitive grants programme. Due to the recent confirmation of future funding from one of GCP's major funders, GCP is happy to announce that new commissioned projects, on hold until recently, will be initiated as of July 2007.
Template for Commissioned Project Proposals (please note that these forms are only to be filled by applicants whose concept notes have been successful. In principle, GCP does not accept unsolicited research proposals and such proposals will not be reviewed or acknowledged).
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For these projects, budget and activities are developed in close collaboration with funders based on GCP's specific requirements (see our mission, vision and objectives).
An example is the three-year project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on 'Improving tropical legume productivity for marginal environments in sub-Saharan Africa' (TLI). This project brings advanced molecular research labs together with national research partners in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe to develop molecular markers for groundnut, cowpea, beans and chickpea. Once validated, these markers will be used to accelerate the development of stress-tolerant legume varieties that meet the needs of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
In line with GCP's Strategic Framework 2007, a project Delivery Plan was developed at the project launch meeting in September 2007. The meeting also included a consultative needs assessment for TLI NARS partners in bioinformatics, and laboratory and field research. This assessment forms the basis for tailor-made capacity-building for partners to guarantee sustainability and ensure product delivery.
RESEARCH MENU
Our research focus, projects and resources
For an overview of GCP projects, please see: