The ENVS8018 - Partnership Research for Agricultural & Natural Resource-Based Development seminar series will showcase a range of speakers over semester 1, 2022 to explore the challenges and opportunities in the global food system.

Achieving food and nutrition security, poverty reduction, improved wellbeing and greater equity, while conserving and enhancing natural capital, and delivering climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes, are amongst the greatest and most demanding challenges of this century. The UN Sustainable Development Goals articulate ambitions for each of these elements, and progressing towards those ambitions requires that we also address the synergies and tensions between the SDGs.

Over the past 50 years, a global network of institutions and initiatives has emerged to catalyse and communicate research, enable and link researchers, in support of agriculture and natural resources-based development to address these global challenges. Australian researchers, policy makers and practitioners have contributed to this network and activities in a variety of ways; the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) has played a central role in many of these. ACIAR’s partnership mode of research for development is acknowledged globally as an exemplar that other seek to emulate.
 

Please email Peter Kanowski for the zoom link if you wish to attend online.
 

About the seminar

ACIAR’s partnership research depends on effective country- and institutional-level partnerships, and on relevant science directed at priority issues. Peter Horne and Dan Walker have these responsibilities at ACIAR. Joining them to discuss ‘how to make partnership research work’ are two partners from the region: Mai Alagcan (PNG) and Florence Rahiria (Fiji).
 

About the speakers

Dr Peter Horne is responsible for leading and setting the research strategy for ACIAR country (bilateral) programs, managing the ACIAR country office network, and leading the engagement with key research partners and stakeholders, in Australia and overseas. Previously, he was Research Program Manager for Livestock Production Systems for ACIAR. Peter has spent most of his career based in Asia involved in agricultural research-for-development, with a particular focus on forages and livestock systems. Peter has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in environmental sciences from Griffith University and a PhD in tropical forage agronomy from University of New England, Australia.
 

Dr Daniel Walker oversees the strategic science focus of the ACIAR research portfolio and its impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation work. The Chief Scientist also provides leadership for Research Program Managers across nine research areas, and oversight of our relationship with the Australian innovation system. He joined ACIAR in November 2017 to take up the newly-created role of Chief Scientist. Prior to ACIAR, Daniel spent 23 years at CSIRO, where he was Research Director for Agriculture and Global Change with CSIRO Agriculture and Food and previously, Chief of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences. Daniel has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in agriculture, forestry and rural economy from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Wales.
 

Mai Alagcan is based in Suva, Fiji. Before joining the Pacific Office, Mai was Country Manager for ACIAR in the Philippines. Prior to joining ACIAR, Mai was the Senior Program Officer for Disaster Risk Reduction and Humanitarian Program with DFAT at the Australian Embassy in Manila. Mai has also worked in the Philippine public sector, with extensive professional and management experience on program development, policy analysis and monitoring and evaluation in the agriculture and fisheries sector. Mai has a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines and postgraduate certificate in Regional Development Planning from the University of the Philippines and Technical University of Dortmund in Germany.