Oscar Ortiz is Senior Director, Crop-Based Systems, CGIAR. He is an agronomist by training and started working for the National Institute of Agricultural Research and the NESTLE private company in Peru. He joined CIP in 1992 as a member of the Social Sciences and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Departments, working on impact assessment of IPM, before going for his graduate studies on this subject. He rejoined CIP as a post doc in 1998, then as a research associate in 2001. He was then appointed leader of the Integrated Crop Management Research Division from 2004 to 2011. During 2012 and 2013 he was the leader of the Integrated Crop and systems Research Global Program, and Deputy Director of Research for Regional Science Programs. In 2014, he was appointed as Deputy Director General for Research and Development at CIP.
He has more than twenty years of experience in leading and managing interdisciplinary teams involving both biophysical and social sciences. This includes vast experience in participatory research and training related to integrated insect and disease control, integrated crop management (ICM), agronomy and seed management; impact assessment of research and extension activities; use of the agricultural knowledge and information systems, and of innovation system approaches for research and development; leading seed-related teams on potato and sweetpotato as part of ICM-related research and development; research related to innovation systems, and more recently as a member of the management committee of the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB).
Oscar holds a PhD in Agricultural Innovation and Rural Development from the University of Reading, UK.