White papers on GCP communications and knowledge sharing: GCP’s scientific and social network
Abstract
A series of Position Papers have been drafted by the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) team in collaboration with external experts. The goals are to communicate the outputs and deliverables from each research component during 2004–2014, and to explore options for enabling and ensuring that the potential benefits of these components will be fully realised in the future. This paper focuses on the outputs and options for GCP’s scientific and social network component.
GCP links basic science with applied research through a broad network of plant scientists from diverse backgrounds, working in regional and country research programmes and at CGIAR Centres, in academia and other research institutes. The first GCP External Programme and Management Review conducted in 2007 captures this ‘people’ essence of GCP in its conclusion: \"Perhaps the most important value of GCP thus far, is the opportunities it has provided for people of diverse backgrounds to think collectively about solutions to complex problems and in the process to learn from one another.\"
Indeed, formal presentations by, and informal conversations with, GCP collaborators have both clearly confirmed that these partnerships initiated and nurtured by GCP are greatly valued. In fact, some consider partnerships to be the most enduring legacy of the Programme; they bring together players in crop research that may otherwise never have worked together, and infuse them with what was described at the 2011 General Research Meeting as ‘the GCP spirit’.
[A link to the PDF of the draft version of this paper has been retained in case of difficulties in reading the final e-paper version.]
Citation
GCP Management Team. White papers on GCP communications and knowledge sharing: GCP’s scientific and social network. Generation Challenge Programme, Mexico (2012) 11 pp.