TLI Project launch meeting:

Rustenberg Kloof, South Africa, 18-22 September 2007

• Meeting Agenda
• List of Participants  
• Presentations
• Photos

The project launch meeting was, among other things, the forum for revisiting the workplans of the different objectives and meticulously going through all the different activities with all partners present. During this workshop, comprehensive product delivery plans were elaborated, in line with GCP’s strategy framework. A good portion of  time at the meeting was devoted to the Delivery Plan Kit (DPKit): the geographically dispersed research teams jointly completed the DP Kit, a GCP hands-on tool to promote product delivery. 

Another critical objective of the kick-off meeting was a consultative needs assessment in terms of bioinformatics, and laboratory and field research for TLI project partners in the national agricultural research systems (NARS). This assessment will form the basis for tailor-made capacity-building for national partners, thus guaranteeing sustainability and facilitating product delivery.

Among others, a couple of major challenges were identified:

• Firstly, partners from the national research programmes currently have limited expertise to accurately evaluate segregating populations. Therefore, and as already described above, context-specific training and capacity-building will be part and parcel of the project because good phenotyping data is indispensable.
• Secondly, because of the project’s broad research network with components conducted by geographically dispersed partners, effective and frequent communication will be critical. It was therefore agreed to hold regular conference calls and meetings at different levels, both within and across objectives, as well as ensuring clear documentation of experiments and accurate and timely reporting on project progress.
  

Please note that a list of participant presentations will soon be made available.

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