Crops For the Future and The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus Doctoral Training Partnership (CFF-UNMC DTP) students and international experts on underutilised crops met recently to discuss cross-disciplinary research on underutilised crops at the CFF-UNMC DTP week organised jointly by UNMC and CFF.
CFF-UNMC DTP, has close to 300 postgraduate student years for PhD or MRes research focused on developing independent, trained, highly-employable scientists who will contribute to the diversification of future agriculture through the use of underutilised crop species for food, feed and industrial purposes.
The DTP Week is an integral part of the dedicated DTP training aimed at encouraging cross-disciplinary thinking and an awareness of the impact of other disciplines on the students’ specific PhD work.
In her welcome remarks Professor Christine Ennew, CEO and Provost of UNMC noted that CFF and UNMC have established the current DTP to undertake research into how underutilised crops can make a greater contribution to food security.
“Crops For the Future is a great example of the importance of having vision in scientific endeavour, the vision to see that underutilised crops make a difference to food and nutrition security,” Professor Ennew added.
Prof Graham Kendall, Vice-Provost (Research and Knowledge Transfer) at UNMC talked about the importance of working along the ‘research value chain’ and across disciplines saying,
“It is really important that we bridge the disciplines by talking to people from other disciplines, which can be difficult, but once you start those cross-disciplinary discussions it is amazing , the sort of synergies you can find’,” said Professor Kendall.
Prof Sayed Azam-Ali, Chief Executive Officer, Crops For the Future, shared his own personal experience while pursuing his postgraduate studies by encouraging students to make use of the opportunities and by working with experts in this field so that they can contribute to research for the development of underutilised crops.
Challenging the DTP students Prof Azam-Ali said, ‘The new frontier in agriculture is the marginal lands of Africa and Asia and South Eastern Europe and the America’s. The future of agriculture in these regions will require people like you working together across disciplines’.
The DTP week also represented an excellent opportunity for CFF and UNMC/University of Nottingham, UK research activities to become more integrated and to explore future grant proposals, including the future rounds of DTP scholarships.
The DTP workshop is an annual event that brings students, supervisors and international experts together to discuss aspects of research on underutilised crops. It is an excellent opportunity for students to learn how to conduct research that will have an impact on food security, the environment and health.
(Thumbnail image: Attendees of CFF-UNMC DTP Week)
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More information is available from Festo Massawe, co-Director CFF-UNMC DTP, festo.massawe@nottingham.edu.my or Sean Mayes, co-Director CFF-UNMC DTP, sean.mayes@cffresearch.org or Josephine Dionisappu, PR & Communications Manager on +6 (03)8924 8746, josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my.
Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with campuses in China and Malaysia modelled on a headquarters that is among the most attractive in Britain’ (Times Good University Guide 2014). It is also one of the most popular university in the UK among graduate employers, in the top 10 for student experience according to the Times Higher Education and winner of ‘Research Project of the Year’ at the THE Awards 2014. It is ranked in the world’s top one per cent of universities by the QS World University Rankings, and 8th in the UK by research power according to REF2014.
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Posted on 20th January 2015