News and information on science and global development
Events, News
Christopher H. Trisos, Jess Auerbach & Madhusudan Katti
The ICCA report highlights the importance of recognising Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights and governance systems for effective and equitable conservation.
Wealthy countries are buying up available COVID-19 vaccines, leaving tiny amounts for others. “The price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - Four strategies to right a ‘scandalous inequity’.
Image: STEPHAN SCHMITZ/FOLIOARTThe Leading House for the Latin American Region's Academia-Industry Training (AIT) is a unique accelerator program to help Swiss startups learn how to internationalize into an emerging market.
The Global Development Network is partnering with the French Development Agency, AFD, to conduct an online video contest, on key development transitions taking place across the globe. If you are up to 40 years old and are a researcher from the Global South, apply by 4 July 2021.
Image: Photo: istockPay-to-publish models adopted by science journals ‘exacerbate the exclusion of researchers from the global South’. SciDev Blog by Luisa Massarani, Meghie Rodrigues, Béatrice Longmene Kaze, Hazem Badr and Riad Mazouzi.
Articles in Mountain Research and Development Vol 40, No 4 present examples and insights into education for sustainable mountain development around the world. Covering a wide range of formal and informal education at all levels, including practical training and lifelong learning opportunities, they provide a basis for future research, policy, and action. The issue was guest-edited by Jörg Balsiger and Martin Price.
The Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB) expanded their website. A new platform allows for a time and space travel through the BAB's institutional history. It offers information about a selection of partners, collaborations, projects and publications which shaped the history of the BAB.
The opportunity grants support bottom-up initiatives of researchers from Swiss universities, universities of applied sciences, universities of teacher education, and public research institutes, linked to specific events or incidents in China (incl. Hong Kong and Taiwan), Japan, South Korea and member states of ASEAN.
The course is designed for researchers in developing countries working in the social sciences. It is particularly suitable for early career researchers, or those with limited experience in publishing papers in reputable peer-reviewed journals.
The aim of the Research Partnership Grants is to strengthen or initiate a scientific exchange between Swiss and Latin American researchers and institutions. They can be used to develop joint project proposals to be submitted to large funding agencies in Latin America, Switzerland, and Europe.
The prize honours researchers for the excellence of their contribution to scientific research pursued in partnership between scientific institutions in the North and in Côte d'Ivoire and/or in other countries of West Africa.
African researchers are suffering from power dynamics that favour global North collaborators. While some initiatives are helping build local capacity, others undervalue African collaborators. COVID-19 is aiding the creation of a foundation for future North-South collaborations. SciDevNet Blog by Laura Owings.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and Swissnex launched the new platform research.swiss showcasing scientific and technological cooperation opportunities between Switzerland and the rest of the world.
UKCDR and ESSENCE launched a new Equitable Partnerships Resource Hub, which brings together guidance, tools and principles on equitable partnerships from across the world.
Mountain Research and Development is looking for trans- and interdisciplinary contributions that help understand the links between hazards, vulnerabilities, disaster management, and diverse dimensions of development, adaptation, and global change.
The ETH project “Science Action in Schools for Sustainable Development (SAS4SD)” has ended. As an outcome, teaching materials on “Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation” and “Climate Smart Cocoa Production” are now available.
A new open access publication on how to improve research impact for development by the Impact Initiative for International Development Research, University of Cambridge.
The Dispatch on the Promotion of Education, Research and Innovation for the years 2021–2024 provides for a continuation of the bilateral cooperation programmes with non-European partner countries launched in 2008. An international assessment conducted in 2020 confirmed that these programmes play an important role in the diversification of international research collaborations and result in a significant increase in the number of scientific co-publications by Swiss and non-European partners. The funding instrument has now been confirmed for another four years and performance agreements signed with five Leading Houses.
The Swiss Forum for International Agricultural Research (SFIAR) offers an annual Award for graduates and scientists of a Swiss institution who work in agricultural research for development.
Two new issues of MRD are complete. Vol 40, No 2 focuses on the role of mountain biodiversity for sustainable development. Papers from various world regions offer further evidence of mountain species’ importance for human livelihoods and wellbeing, and call for effective conservation and management approaches. Vol 40, No 1 also contains several biodiversity-related articles; further studies address tourism development in the South Caucasus and other topics.
This article spans issues of international student mobility, inequalities in higher education, and spaces for transformative learning for sustainable development.
Unter dem Motto «Unser Klima unsere Zukunft. Klimakommunikation in Krisenzeiten» werden am K3 Kongress die neusten Erkenntnisse aus der Forschung aufgezeigt und sogleich in interaktiven Werkstätten in die Umsetzung gebracht. Sie können sich jetzt um einen der 21 Workshopplätze bewerben! Gesucht sind Konzepte von hoher Themenrelevanz und methodischer Vielfalt. Eingabefrist: 29. März 2021.
Based on insight generated from Swiss academic and research entities, this Policy Brief aims to highlight the importance of bringing R&S4D closer, at research entities in Switzerland and elsewhere, and how to go about doing it.
A synthesis of twelve years (2007-2019) of the long-term farming systems comparisons in the tropics (SysCom)
Covid-19 has changed the way we do almost everything. There is significant hope this is temporary, but while we continue to live under various lockdowns and restrictions, how can we carry out research that ensures the safety of the participants and researchers above all else?
The Swiss Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE) recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. This milestone affords us the opportunity to look back on – and take stock of – the commission’s experiences, as they may hold important lessons for the future.
18th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons
Synthesis report on how to measure the coherence of Switzerland's development policy.
The fair research contracting self-assessment tool supports institutions to engage in fair and equitable negotiation processes for formal contracts despite recognised imbalances in institutional contracting capacities.
Switzerland is small, rich, and profits greatly from globalization. Consequently, it is under growing international and public pressure from those who wish to make the world economy “fairer” and “more sustainable” by means of transnational rules.
For millennia, humankind’s food security and resilience were ensured by thousands of cultivated plant species, dozens of domesticated animal species, and the wider biodiversity from which they derive. But with the expansion of industrial agriculture and globalized standardized food systems, this long-running agricultural biodiversity has fallen steeply. Today, just three plant species account for half of all plant-based food calories, and only four animal species account for the vast majority of meat supplies. Looking ahead, restoring agrobiodiversity – the richness of what we cultivate, breed, consume, and conserve in the wild – is crucial to ensure resilient food systems against the backdrop of climate change. In particular, we must safeguard the livelihoods of the “guardians of agrobiodiversity”: approximately 500 million small farms across the world – particularly those in the global South. This factsheet outlines causes and consequences of agrobiodiversity loss, areas of promise, and options for policy and research.
Doing research in conflict contexts is crucial. But how do you best conduct research in conflict-affected contexts? These guidelines are designed for all levels of researchers – from research student to professor – who conduct research in settings that are conflict-affected.
International Conference of SUDAC – swissuniversities Development and Cooperation Network and KFPE. The focus was placed on research partnerships in and with the Global South. With its programmes Consortia for Education and Research (COFERs) and Clusters of Cooperation in the Global South (CLOC), swissuniversities provides important instruments to foster these research partnerships.
In September 2018, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the KFPE held a joint workshop in Tanzania. The purpose of which was to bring together researchers and stakeholders from the Global South to identify: (1) What constitutes best practice in research partnerships (2) How to engage researchers and governments from the Global South in research programme agenda setting (3) How to translate research outputs into development impact.
More than 70 high-level decision makers, scientists, NGO and funding agency representatives gathered to celebrate 20 years of KFPE Guidelines at the conference “Leveraging Research Partnerships for Global Challenges”. A series of talks presented in three separate sessions addressed the following topics: (i) new roles and tasks of science in general and research partnerships in particular; (ii) regional adaptation of scientific systems; and (iii) how science policies and funding systems can support transformative research. Participants were left with one clear conclusion at the end of the 22 November meeting: stronger integration and dialogue between science and society, including policy and business, is essential if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.