2. GCP in Brief
A CGIAR Challenge Programme hosted at CIMMYT
10-year framework (Phase I, 2004–2008; Phase II, 2009–2014)
US$ 170 M program
Target zones: drought-prone environments
Sub-Saharan Africa, South & South East Asia, L. America
Eighteen CGIAR mandate crops in Phase I
Nine CGIAR mandate crops in Phase II
Cereals: maize, rice, sorghum, wheat,
Legumes: beans, chickpea, cowpea, groundnut
Roots and tubers: cassava
Strategic objective: To use genetic diversity and advanced plant science to
improve crops for greater food security in the developing world
GCP: A broker in plant science bridging the gap between upstream and applied
science
www.generationcp.org
3. The sorghum case: From Cornell to African farmers’
fields with a stopover in Brazil: a ten-year effort
Step 1: Competitive Project (initiated 2004)
Led by Cornell in collaboration with EMBRAPA
Plantlets screened under hydroponics – Alt1 Gene cloned
Magalhaes et al. 2007, Nature Genetics, 39: 1156–1151
Step 2: Competitive Project (initiated 2007)
Led by EMBRAPA in collaboration with Cornell
Favourable alleles identified – Improved germplasm for
Brazil
Caniato et al. 2011, PLoS One 6, e20830
Step 3: Commissioned work (initiated 2009)
Led by Moi University in collaboration with EMBRAPA
Introgression of favourable alleles – Improved germplasm
for Kenya and Niger
Linking Upstream with Applied Science
5. Genetic resources
Reference sets for 18 crops (all CGIAR mandate crops)
Genomic resources
Markers for ‘orphan crops’
Informative markers
Drought, viruses and insect resistance
Genes/QTL
AltSB for aluminium tolerance, Pup1 for P uptake efficiency, Saltol for
salt tolerance and Sub1 for submergence tolerance.
Improved germplasm
New bioinformatic tools (DM, diversity studies, breeding, etc)
Enhanced capacities for MAB in NARS programmes
Human-resource capacities / Physical infrastructure / Analytical power
Ex-ante analyses on MB impact in developing countries
Product Catalogue available at:
www.generationcp.org/impact/product-catalogue
Selected major research outputs
6. ‘Classic’ approach
Formal postgraduate training programmes
100+ MSc and PhD students whose work is embedded in research projects
Workshops, fellowship grantees, travel grants
Train-the-trainers for future regionalised capacity-building sustainability
Communities of practice
Rice in the Mekong; Cassava in Africa
IBP-hosted (both crop- and expertise-based)
Perhaps not so common – probably uniquely GCP
Capacity building à la carte
Integrated Breeding Multi-Year Course: breeding, data management,
data analysis
CB along the delivery chain (scientists, technicians, station managers)
Technical support for infrastructure implementation
IBP an integrated way to promote the problem-solving approach
It is really about “learning as you go”
Capacity Building
7. Building on our Network!
IB-MYC:134 breeders; 10 crops; 31 countries
8. Key learning areas
Governance
Research management
Monitoring and evaluation
Partnership
Adoption and behaviour change
Integrated Breeding Platform
Conclusion
9. Governance
Issue:
Dysfunctional governance for nearly half of GCP’s life until
mid-2008, with governance body comprised of direct
beneficiaries of its own decisions
Solution:
Involvement of stakeholders (‘owners’) and partners to
define the overall objectives and general direction, but
Separate independent body to approve workplan and
oversee implementation
Small group of complementary expertise (GCP EB works very well!)
Access to specific expertise when needed (eg, GCP’s IP Committee)
Accountability must be clarified first!
10. Science management:
broker in plant science – the CP model
A management team that defines and implements ‒ in
partnership and through grants ‒ a workplan to achieve
overall objectives
Agile research management approach that allows…
Bringing in new ideas for strong partnerships
Continually enhancing research quality and efficiency
Adjusting research activities based on external environment
New technologies, partners, opportunities for synergy, etc
Easily discontinue unsuccessful projects
But…
Must revolve around a specific research topic
Can only exist with the support of well-established institutes
Ideally focused and time-bound
Excellent complement of core activities
11. Competitive grants
Do not necessarily fall neatly into your research priorities (dead-end
projects)
Capture emerging opportunities, best ideas and new partners
Increase research quality
Commissioned projects
Not always good value for money, less transparent
Consolidate the research agenda
Very efficient when they build on successful competitive projects
Different kinds of research: the dynamics
Competitive
Commissioned
Services
10 years
$
Competitive and commissioned approaches each have their pros
and cons, but are complementary, maximising impact & potential!
12. Monitoring and evaluation
Issue:
Inadequate research-management capacity in GCP’s early
years due to part-time appointments (attractive in theory, but
difficult in practice)
Lack of an M&E framework from the beginning (though this may
not have been required at the time)
Conflict of interest within the MT
Not the same skills (Animator vs Manager)
Options:
Full-time management team
Separate the planning and implementation from a stand-alone
M&E component
Of course good management capacity and practice have a
cost, and therefore efficiency needs to be considered
carefully
(Management cost of the GCP: about 15%)
14. Be strategic in partnership development
The importance of people
People are first, and institutions are second
Building on existing partnerships, maximising on personal relations
Be selective, and also cautious
Can easily get out of hand, can be a distraction
Plan for it, and do not underestimate effort needed
managing true partnerships takes time and resources!!!
But, if managed well…
One of the most efficient and effective ways to do business
One of the most rewarding components of the work
Creates a special group dynamic and brings in new ideas
Cultivates public trust, with the resultant positive public image
Partnership: key notes to keep in mind
15. Indicators
Money allocation to partners
Significant in-kind contribution from partners
Open exchange of experience and information
Partners not necessarily attracted (purely) by money, but to be part
of a network, visibility and exchanges with peers abroad
Critical but indispensable intangibles – trust and goodwill
Partners continue to work together after GCP projects end
Evolution of roles and responsibilities
A switch: Leaders become mentors
Knowledge applied & transferred: Trainees become doers & leaders
In phase II, more than half of our PIs are from developing countries
and more than half the grants go directly to National Programmes
It takes time and resources to nurture and implement true
partnership!
True Partnerships
16. GCP network
EMBRAPA
Brasilia
Brazil
CIP
Lima
Peru
CIAT
Cali
Colombia
CIMMYT
Mexico City
Mexico
Cornell
University
USA
Wageningen University
Netherlands
John Innes Centre
Norwich
UK
CAAS
Beijing
China
NIAS
Tsukuba
Japan
Agropolis
Montpellier
France
IPGRI
Rome
Italy
WARDA
Bouaké
Cote d’Ivore
IRRI
Los Baños
Philippines
ICRISAT
Patancheru
India
ICARDA
Aleppo
Syria
IITA
Ibadan
Nigeria
ACGT
Pretoria
South Africa
ICAR
New Delhi
India
BIOTEC
Bangkok
Thailand
INRA
Rabat
Morocco
CINVESTAV
Irapuato
Mexico
Instituto Agronomico per l’Oltremare
Florence
Italy
9 CGIAR
6 ARIs
7 NARS
ETH
Zurich
Switzerland
Partners
Consortium
17. EPMR panel (2008) noted that the GCP community is one
of the Programme’s most crucial assets. In their words:
“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.”
Major achievement: the GCP community
GCP People: The Programme’s Greatest Asset!
18. Other challenges
Operational
Keeping key partners aligned with the overall shared
objective(s)
Prioritisation and resource allocation
The two bosses and part-time boss syndromes
Communication (internal and external) – vital for a
distributed team
Recognition and ownership
Research
inclusiveness vs efficiency
Germplasm exchange
Genetic stocks
Work quality standard
Inclusiveness vs efficiency
20. Challenges:
Most of the breeders in the developing world capture their data
by hand and store them in hard copy (book)
Protective and proprietary attitude prevents data sharing
Not a top priority, no clear resource allocation, data still in the
hands of individual scientists
One of the major challenges in collaborative efforts (GCP)
Implementation:
Clear DM policy in place at the institutional level
Quality and documentation improved thanks to:
Adoption of new data capture tools with predefined templates
Proper budget allocation, support staff, part of the staff evaluation process
Donor requirement beforehand
Quality control must start at the scientist level
5-20% of crop improvement R4D is wasted because of poor data
management (quality, analysis, availability) and breeding decisions
Data Management (A Key Technical Hitch)
21. The IBP is a comprehensive web-based platform enabling
plant breeders to access and use modern breeding in a
practical and sustainable way
We are here to support breeders to access good breeding
practices, enabling them to play a leading role in R4D
Our primary target are breeders in developing countries, both in
the public and private sectors
We target sustainable deployment at the institutional level
We promote the adoption of the entire platform (products,
services and networks)
IBP adoption would represent a small revolution for breeders
The right platform is a must have to maximize genetic gain
To adopt the platform must go with a revision of breeding strategy
Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP):
Definition and core principles
22. Breeders:
Increase data quality, documentation and exchange
Savings in time and cost to run breeding activities
Increased genetic progress per each crop cycle
Enhanced certainty in crop breeding outcomes
Value Proposition
Institutions:
Improved institutional data management
Better product at a lower price (efficiency and effectiveness)
Improve the value proposition to attract funding
Society:
Improved crops (quality and yield) in farmers’ fields
More income for smallholder farmers
More and better food to feed the world
23. CGIAR Centers:
♦ Ongoing: Africa Rice, CIMMYT, ICARDA, ICRISAT and IITA (CIAT and CIP)
Selected Institutions:
♦ AATF (Africa), CIRAD (France), ACPFG (Australia), Nobel Foundation (USA)
Selected contact in the Private sector
♦ Biogemma, Limagrain, Seed Co, Monsanto
Formal commitment of NARS Directors in Africa and Asia
♦ ARC (Sudan) BIOTEC (Thailand) CAAS (China), EIAR (Ethiopia), IER (Mali),
PhilRice (Philippines), ISRA (Senegal), NARO (Uganda) and Regional
Centers in Tanzania
Universities in developed countries:
♦ Ongoing: Cornell, UGA, ISU, Riverside (Davis, Hohenheim, IRTA, WUR)
Universities in developing countries:
♦ Ongoing: KwaZulu-Natal, Makerere, WACCI +11
Users
♦ About 1500 people download the BMS
♦ About 300-500 early adopters of the BMS worldwide
BMS Deployment and Early Adopters
24. Tools
Breeding Management System (BMS)
The core product of the IBP
Peripheral tools (Collaborations):
Electronic data capture devises, code bare, electronic weights, LIMS, etc
Crop Information
Crop ontology and trait dictionary
Breeding Services
Genotyping (e.g. SNP sets), diagnostic markers, germplasm
Capacity Development
Tutorials, courses and online teaching
Community Spaces
Blogs, forums, publications
IBP Core Products
25. Breeding Management System
A suite of interconnected software tools and applications specifically
designed to help breeders manage their day-to-day activities:
Programme management
Customise preferences and
monitor programme activities
from the Workbench, a
dashboard application with
integrated tools to manage and
query crop information across
the system
Marker-assisted breeding
Select germplasm and design
crosses by complementing
phenotypic selection with marker
technology, for integrated breeding
decisions
Breeding activities
Prepare trials and nurseries,
manage seed inventories and
keep continuous genealogy
records season after season
Statistical analysis
Analyse field and lab data with
powerful statistics and mixed
model comparisons of locations
and genotypes
26. Molecular Breeding Pipelines
Three pipelines ready by early 2016
Seed purity:
Pre-selected set of markers
Neutral plus diagnostic ones
Distribution along the genome
Just a must have
Elite allele enrichment
2-3 must have genes for a breeding programme
Select H or homozygote favorable alleles
Early recombination stage (thousands of F2 plants)
Large economical impact
Elite allele introgression (MAS, BC-MAS)
Background recovery
Confirmation of genetic effect in elite background
Often major genetic gain for a target trait
31. Most people are reluctant or resistant to change
Even people who are interested in change often do not allocate
the time and resources to effect change
Even where there are clear and demonstrable benefits from
making a change, this alone is not sufficient incentive
Most changes can be implemented only by:
Strong bottom-up demand
Mandatory top-down decision
Need to persuade people to be ready to:
Get out of their comfort zone
Dedicate time to learning new things, even if that might not benefit their
work directly, or immediately
Adopt a collaborative rather than competitive approach
Enforcement and implementation
Big difference between the private and public sector
Changing people’s behaviour:
A real challenge in technology transfer
33. Budget and Business Model
Phase I (Traditional/Safe):
2009-14: $20M ($12M for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) under the
leadership of the GCP
“Classic technology development project”
Phase II (Transition/Challenging):
2014-19: $24M ($16M secured) under the leadership of the IBP
2015-2016 a critical period, conservative expenditures
BMS Commercial version early 2016
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for all Staff (starting with the Director)
Performance Matrix for Regional Hubs
Phase III + (Non profit Commercial Organization/???)
2019-who knows: ???, no funding secured, under the leadership of the
GCBSS
Self-funded for the maintenance and development of the BMS
Deployment and capacity building from public funds
A great opportunity to develop a new business model in R4D
Building on the ENTREPRENEURIAL spirit
34. The Business Model!
The Money Pot
Donors
Development Deployment
Commercial
Capacity
Development
Happy subsidized
Users
Happy Paying
Users
36. To think about…..
The engagement of our breeders to work very closely with the
champions is paying off
Trainees become:
Trainers (knowledge dissemination)
Mentors (helping others)
Champions (testimony)
Ambassadors (promotion)
BMS deployment must go with modernization of breeding
practices
The BMS is not supposed to replicate what the breeders are
currently doing but is aimed at implementing a breeding
strategy defined at the programme/Institutional level
37. Conclusions
Major achievements have probably revolved around:
Establishing true partnership with cultural change on how to run R4D
projects
Several flagship projects
Dynamic environment learning by doing (Research and management)
Enabling partners in developing countries to:
Play a leadership role
Access modern breeding
We also had some clear shortcomings
Monitoring & evaluation were the biggest shortfalls (data management)
Several competitive projects were dead-ends
Lessons learnt from the CPs in general and GCP in particular can
inform other operational and organisational models
IBP will survive GCP
Cross cutting support platforms are major assets to implement R4D
effectively and efficiently
38. GCP/IBP International Staff 2003 - 2014
Akinola Akintunde
Antonia Okono
Arllet Portugal
Carmen de Vicente
Chunlin He
Clarissa Pimentel
Claudia Bedoya
Corina Habito
Delphin Fleury
Diego González-
de-León
Eloise Phipps
Fernando Rojas
Fred Okono
Gillian Summers
Graham McLaren
Hamer Pascal
Hei Leung
Humberto Gomez
Jan Erik Backlund
Jean Christophe
Glaszmann
Jenny Nelson
Jonathan Crouch
Kaitlin Lesnick
Kate Durbin
Larry Butler
Mae Christine
Maghirang
Maria Teresa Ulat
Mark Sawkins
Ndeye Ndack Diop
Nelzo Ereful
Nosisa Mayaba
Peter Ninnes
Philippe
Monneveux
Rajeev Varshney
Robert S. Zeigler
Rowena Tulod
Shawn Yarnes
Theo van Hintum
Valérie Boire
Xavier Delannay