Stakeholder Meeting: Science Forum
Harnessing Advances in Science for Sustainable Agriculture

AGM07 featured a day-long Science Forum on December 4, 2007 designed to foster dialogue about scientific achievements and opportunities. The event drew lessons from the use of advances in science in Center research, examined the potential of new approaches from the wider scientific community for better enabling the CGIAR to achieve its goals and considered how these advances could be mobilized effectively.

A significant number of CGIAR scientists attended the forum. Many had the opportunity to influence its content and organization before hand by participating in an online survey and follow-up dialogue. Immediately after the forum, outcomes were shared with CGIAR Members during the AGM07 Business Meeting, providing important input into their discussions and decisions.

A Background on the Stakeholder Meeting: Dialogue on Achievements and Opportunities

A key purpose of the Stakeholder Meeting is to highlight the achievements of collaborative research for development, carried out by the CGIAR-supported Centers and Challenge Programs (CPs). Another is to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to engage in dialogue about issues that are important for the CGIAR.

According to a pattern established several years ago, the Stakeholder Meeting is organized in alternating years as a Science Forum and then as a CSO (civil society organization) Forum. While the latter draws attention to CSO-CGIAR partnerships as a means of translating research into development, the former demonstrates the importance of scientific partnerships for making agricultural research more effective. Both events should highlight and draw lessons from past and current work, but they must also look forward, seeking to identify ways of strengthening the collaborative efforts of the CGIAR.

AGM07 featured a Science Forum, designed to foster useful exchanges with CGIAR stakeholders about scientific achievements and opportunities.

Objectives and Outcomes

The forum's chief objectives were to:

1. Reflect on major scientific achievements in fostering sustainable agriculture
2. Examine advances in science that hold significant promise for enhancing the effectiveness of agricultural research
3. Explore means by which CGIAR researchers can further incorporate advanced science into their research, while offering new opportunities for colleagues in the wider scientific community to contribute to sustainable agriculture

Note: By "advances in science," we refer to new methods, concepts and capacities developed recently in scientific areas that are pertinent to the disciplines in which CGIAR scientists work and to their interdisciplinary efforts and that are potentially useful for meeting major challenges to international agricultural research.

Based on those objectives, the forum was organized in such a way as to produce tangible outcomes, including lessons learned from CGIAR experience about putting science to work for sustainable agriculture, insights about the potential of specific areas of advanced science and concrete measures for mobilizing this science more effectively.

The outcomes of the Science Forum were rapidly synthesized and communicated to CGIAR Members at the AGM07 Business Meeting, providing important input into their discussions and decisions.

Organization

The Science Forum was organized jointly by the CGIAR Secretariat and the Secretariat of the Science Council. In this task, they obtained valuable input through virtual consultations with an advisory group (see list of members). It included representatives of the CGIAR Members, Science Council, Alliance of the CGIAR Centers, Young Professionals in Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences or CAAS (the AGM07 host country organization) and national partners.

The forum organizers and advisory group agreed together on a general agenda for the forum.

Forum Advisory Group

• Hans Herren Member, Science Council, and Chair of its Standing Panel on Mobilizing Science
• Dongxin Feng CAAS
• Romano Kiome CGIAR Member, Kenya
• Marlene Diekmann CGIAR Member, Germany
• Kwesi Attah-Krah Alliance of CGIAR Centers (Bioversity International)
• John McDermott Alliance of CGIAR Centers (ILRI)
• Ramani Balasubramanian Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD)

This page was updated on February 4, 2008.