During the second afternoon of the Science Forum, we plunge into a session that ought to have been scheduled on the first morning – a scene-setting plenary that delves into the key themes that are supposed to be framing the conference: forging par…

This conference is supposed to be about ‘collaboration’ and ‘partnerships’, but what do those concepts mean? In the discussions so far, ‘partnership’ often seems to be used as little more than a proxy term for something else. It seems to encompass…

It has been a lively afternoon at the Science Forum. The conference broke up into six parallel workshops, which discussed issues from gene sequencing to resilience, ICTs to eco-efficiencies and biofuels to biofortification. It would be impossible…

The Science Forum 2009 is now well and truly under way. After opening remarks by the chair of the CGIAR Science Council, Rudy Rabbinge, among others, the conference is kicked off by several agenda-setting keynote speeches.First up is Professor Mar…

The world has changed a great deal since the CGIAR – the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research – was established in 1971. As the CGIAR system struggles to get to grips with the challenges of climate change, population growth an…