Project Management

Scientific Board Meeting

November 2nd, 2012

The BioDIVA board meeting serves to reflect on the achievements of almost 3 years of project duration and to draw strategic recommendations for the remaining year.The BioDIVA team presents the current progress to the BioDIVA board members, who issue advice on matters of research, synthesis and cooperation.

Status Seminar in Berlin

April 16th-17th, 2012

Twelve junior research groups under the social-ecological research programme (SÖF/ FONA) of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) came together with members of the funding agencies in a two day seminar to discuss key findings, elaborate ways to shape social ecological changes and implications for research. The researchers of BioDIVA presented the first results fresh from the field.

The economics tandem of Monish Jose and Girigan Gopi, togther with Martina Padmanabhan presented the paper "Adapting to changing institutions: Livelihood strategies and land use of farmers" in the session "Gestaltungspotenziale in der Landwirtschaft" (potentials for shaping agricultural production).

In the session on the effects of long-term social ecological change (Wirkungen von langfristigem sozial-ökologischen Wandel) Lydia Betz and Isabelle Kunze presented a study on the resilience potential of indegenous communities in Wayanad "Sind indigene Bevölkerungsgruppen resilient gegen Transformationsprozesse? Eine sozial-ökologische Studie in Indien" co-authored with Prajeesh Parameswaran and Suma Tamaracheryil Ramachandran from the MSSRF.

Capacity Building Events

August 30th - November 17th, 2010

The ethnobotanical training by Dr. Gary Martin and Erin Smith, Global Diversity Foundation, offered a fruitful opportunity for the BioDIVA team to gain insights into methods and techniques used in ethnobotany research. We not only learned about the interactive, experimental and transformative aspects of learning processes but also about conducting cultural domain analysis, freelisting, clustering and pile sorting. Ethical issues of ‘doing’ ethnobotanical research were also discussed in-depth.

Intercultural encounters have been the focus of the intercultural training. This experience was a valuable opportunity to reflect critically upon cultural values and the ways in which these can be interpreted differently according to cultural contexts.

The SÖF-Network Meeting took place in Berlin at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften in September 2010. This event was our first encounter with the other 11 research groups which are embedded in the social-ecological framework (SÖF/ FONA) funded by the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

In September, the team travelled to Witzenhausen and visited the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) in order to attend a seminar by PD Dr. Brigitte Kaufmann. Her current focus is on transdisciplinary research and dialogue between knowledge systems. This research area fits well with the BioDIVA project, especially with regard to the development of transformation knowledge towards a gender-equitable and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity .

April 24th - May 15th, 2010

From April 24^th to May 15^th, the BioDIVA Germany team was in India on an explorative field trip. The objective of the journey was to get an overall idea of the research area on the one hand and to establish a firm working relationship with our Indian partners from the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation on the other. In addition, we travelled to various tribal villages to introduce ourselves to some female and male farmers who are engaged in traditional rice cultivation.