The BIO-EARN Newsletter  A Publication from the BIO-EARN Regional Coordination Office No 1, June 2006 Key BIO-EARN Events Since January 2006 BIO-EARN Kick-Off Workshop The kick off workshop was organized by the IUCEA and BIO-EARN coordinating office  mainly to bring the project teams together to chat the way forward for the implementation of the new BIO-EARN R4D Programme, to examine lessons learned from the previous phases and map out the future of the Programme. The workshop was opened by the PS Ministry for S&T (Prof. Crispus Kiamba), who was representing the Minister for S&T. The PS expressed gratitude to all those who had contributed to the success of BIO-EARN phase I and II and acknowledged the Swedish government for the support. He expressed the need to ensure sustainability of the Programme beyond 2009, and conceded that this would require support of all partners. Sida/SAREC was represented by Gity Behrvan, who emphasized the need for regional ownership of the programme. She also informed the participants that the Programme had shifted focus from research and training to collaborative research for development. To this effect Sida had approved support of 77 million SEK (USD 10.5 millions) for a period of four years. Other people who addressed the workshop were Dr Ndemere (former IGB chairperson), who welcomed the participants and thanked Sida for helping the region develop biotechnology capacity, Prof Chacha (Executive secretary IUCEA) and Prof Esther Kahangi the BIO-EARN Regional Coordinator. BIO-EARN impact assessment reports on the four participating countries were presented. All the four presenters highlighted that BIO-EARN had contributed positively to human capacity building and infrastructure development. During this workshop, the BIO-EARN Governing Board (GB) was constituted to replace the Governing Body, which was an interim structure. In this meeting the chairperson and the vice chair of the GB for the current year were elected. The participants noted that networking needs to be explicitly defined and urged the Regional Coordination office to develop a communication strategy. Dr Ivar Virgin thanked the external collaborators notably John Komen and Fred Erbisch for their support with implementation of the IP, biopolicy and product development partnerships of the Programme. Dr Ndemere (chairperson GB) closed the meeting by thanking all the participants and Prof Chacha presented gifts to Dr Ivar Virgin and Benita Forsman as a token of appreciation for exemplary work for the project. BIO-EARN Regional Coordinator Meets Key Collaborators Collaboration with other Programmes and Initiatives in the region The BIO-EARN Programme aims at building on outcomes, and establishing close collaborations and synergies with other relevant actors and regional initiatives. In this context the BIO-EARN Regional Coordinator has held fruitful meetings with the directors BecA, ACTS, KARI, and the Founder and Chair, The Doyle foundation to initiate opportunities for concrete collaboration and synergies between BIO-EARN Programme and these institutions. BIO-EARN Programme website restructuring and update One of the major tasks facing the new BIO-EARN Programme is information dissemination and communication to both the network partners and outside world. One of the means by which the Programme can be popularized is through maintenance of an up to date and easily navigated website. In order to achieve this, the BIO-EARN Programme together with The Doyle Foundation have embarked on an exercise that will see the BIO-EARN website expanded with new content about the new BIOEARN Programme, additional search tools, available through several search engines, and linked to several relevant websites, including the web portal www.biosciencesafrica.org. This joint venture between the BIO-EARN Programme and The Doyle Foundation will greatly improve on the visibility of the BIO-EARN Programme. (Page 3 of 6) Go to next page: Scientific Research Activities