World Association of Young Scientists

Partner Updates

YOUTH FOR GROWING DEVELOPMENT - Young Professionals’ Platform on Agricultural Research for Development

Since its foundation in 2006 at the GFAR in New Dehli, the Young Professionals’ in Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD) follows its mission to provide a global communication and discussion platform for Young Professionals (YPs). This platform is a movement for (1) exchanging information/knowledge, (2) sharing access to resources that leads to capacity building and (3) contributing to strategic ARD policy debates, to promote agriculture as education and career among YPs.
The pillar of YPARD success is its members and their active participation in various activities. Up to now, 1545 YPs - from 115 countries and about 60% representing developing countries-have registered as members. In addition, YPs participated actively in various meetings including thematic, strategic and policy debates. Moreover, since 2006, YPARD was successful in establishing regional YPARD chapters in East Africa (Rwanda), South Asia (India), Latin America, Caribbean (Peru) and Europe (Germany).
Furthermore, 3 proposals (2008/2009) have been selected to offer grants for local and regional initiatives by YPs in India, Kenya and Latin Amrica and Caribbean region. This YPARD funded initiative is aimed to encourage individuals joining forces with other individuals and/or organizations in a country/region who would like to set up an initiative bringing together young professionals (YPs) to discuss, debate and act on key issues revolving Agricultural Research for Development (ARD).
Right now, YPARD is actively involved in the ‘Agricultural knowledge sharing, management, education and learning’ and together with the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), Commonwealth of Learning (COL), and the CGIAR an agenda for Improving Knowledge Sharing, Agricultural Education and Learning will be proposed during the CGIAR AGM08 on December 4 and 5, 2008 at Maputo. The outcomes of this meeting will feed into a planned high level conference on improving investment in agricultural research and innovation in 2009 being organized jointly by GFAR, FAO, IFAD and the CGIAR.
In summary, YPARD achieved within the initial phase of two years a sustainable organizational and governance structure, an accepted charter, highly dynamic active e-tools, and a large membership.

The YPARD organizational and governance structure:

This structure enables YPARD not only to institutionalize but also to monitor its work. It further provides a sound basis for institutional sustainability in the medium and long run. A coordinator and an assistant are staffed at the coordination unit.
The final year of the first project cycle is currently on with organizing and strengthening local bases of YPARD members in selected regions through grants and in cooperation with regional fora leading to long-term sustainability.
YPARD is supported - among other donors - by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) who are the major ones.

To receive more detailed information on YPARD and its activities, please visit their website at http://ypard.org or send an e-mail to coordinationunit@ypard.org

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the world lecture project

Michael Fischer has been busy preparing the launch of the new website. Take a look and you will find some very interesting lectures. From social sciences’ “The Future of the Environment” by André Berger to “The Freedom of the Internet” by Vint Cerf, you will truly have the world’s lectures at your fingertips!

Please visit:
http://www.world-lecture-project.org/

WAYS Africa

WAYS Africa was launched in Pretoria, South Africa on the 21-22 March 2007, with the financial support of the NRF (National Research Foundation, South Africa), ICSU ROA (International Council for Science, Regional Office for Africa) and ISP (International Science Programme). Representatives of thirteen African countries elected the executive committee and established the constitution of the organization.
Since its launch, WAYS Africa has been invited to speak at various events that were aimed at Young Scientists. In 2007, WAYS Africa attended 6 events as speakers, various members of the executive committee spoke at the different events. These events included an IFS meeting in Pretoria for grant holders of the organization, which was attended by delegates from different countries in Africa. The launch of the NRF PhD Programme in Pretoria, which is an initiative of the South African Government to increase the numbers of PhD graduates in all disciplines in South Africa. WAYS Africa also presented at the 2nd TWAS-ROSSA Young Scientist Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007. In 2008 WAYS Africa presented at the Scientific Writing Workshop for Southern African Region. Additionally WAYS assisted the Scholarship Research Programme with a Capacity Building Workshop held from 1-3 March 2008. The following three tracks were offered, Remote Sensing Analysis & GIS, Online Resources for Research and Entrepeneurship. Facilitators included lecturing staff from the ScholarShip and the University of Cape Town, South African Patent Law firms and South African Biotechnologly Research Innovation Centres, ICGEB from India, the Director of INFORM and brought together Africans from 15 countries.
Currently WAYS Africa has secured sponsorship from the NRF to exhibit at the PhD Programme Annual Conference being held in Johannesburg, South Africa from the 6-8 May 2009. More information regarding the conference is available on the WAYS website.
WAYS Africa operates in slightly different format to WAYS, in that for it to work in the developing world, its physical presence is required. As can be seen from the above, we do tend to move around and speak to as many Young Scientists as possible. It is particularly encouraging to witness the excitement and anticipation of the audience when a presentation on WAYS is delivered amongst the Young Scientists, but more than that amongst the Senior Scientists. I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked why the age limit is so low, as even the Senior’s want to join!
Henry Roman, contributor of this column, reports that he is excited by what the future holds for WAYS Africa and for WAYS; hopes that the infrastructure on the African continent will allow for more Young Scientists to interact on the website as their counterparts in the Developed World do.

“French-German Corner:
GIRAF-IFFD

Groupe Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Allemagne France

Giraf offre des livres aux girafons souhaitant écrire des recensions: Pour développer la diffusion de l'actualité scientifique franco-allemande, l'association souhaite encourager l'écriture de recensions de livres sur son site.
Pour recevoir un ouvrage, contactez nous par le formulaire prévu à cet effet (sélectionner la catégorie "site web")
- Ces ouvrages peuvent concerner toutes les disciplines des sciences de la culture
- On privilégiera les recensions "croisées": recension en français d'ouvrages allemands, et réciproquement
- Ce service est réservé aux membres de l'association: pour vous inscrire, suivez la procédure indiquée sur le site
- Les recensions peuvent être ou non critiques
- Les recensions sont signées, et engagent donc la responsabilité scientifique de leur(s) auteur(e)(s).
Les recensions reçoivent la licence juridique compatible avec la mobilité des contenus ; par défaut, il s'agira d'une licence Creative Commons utilisée par le site (diffusion et reproduction libres avec l'obligation de citer l'auteur original et l'interdiction de toute modification et de toute utilisation commerciale sans autorisation préalable)

Looking for Opportunities?

As other online websites have become notorious for posting jobs that may or may not exist, WAYS members’ postings provide you with veritable opportunities for seeking positions. To check up on the newest postings, please visit: http://ways.org/en/careers/latest

We hope this newsletter issue finds you well and successful - we look forward to hearing from you!

Greetings from the World Association of Young Scientists

Dear member,

You joined this network to share the view that promoting, extending and sharing scientific method and knowledge will bring a brighter future to mankind. If you've been keeping track, you already know that how rapidly our network is growing - WAYS is the largest grassroots scientific network with global reach. Now's a good time to visit the site to learn about the new services we have to offer you!

If you haven't updated your profile in a while, the time is just about right to do so. You can update your bibliography and mark your papers, use your personal blog space to present your work, share your ideas or upload videos of your talks. Want to post your lessons online as a blog post? Please do! Keep us updated with the progress of your institution - we want to help you promote your work! Remember, this is your space.

If you want to exchange information, check out our collaborative databases:

• Are you preparing a conference? Inform the other members by submitting an event.
• Is there a position opening in your lab, or have you heard of an opportunity elsewhere? Add your post to our carreer center here…or search it for your next move.
• Want to keep track of recent changes? Use our RSS feeds.

Every action you take on the website - from posting a conference you're organizing, to commenting on a controversial blog post, to inviting a friend - earns you WAYS points. We've got some very exciting developments with regards to rewarding the most active and prolific participants on the website... but we're not telling yet. ;)

Is your scientific association looking for a website? Take a look at testimonials from some of our newest member associations below. With new partnerships and sponsorships to help us grow, WAYS has been preparing an attractive, turn-key package that includes hosting, maintenance, member database management, document archiving and much more - free of charge. We would be happy to help you - if you are looking for a free, open, attractive solid platform on the web to host your organization, look no further.

There is much more cool stuff around, but if you can't find the service you would like, let us know! WAYS is developed by scientists, for scientists. Our guiding vision is that we should continue to do more, better, to help global science flourish. Finally, if you're interested in joining our team of volunteers to help develop and maintain the website and spread the WAYS movement around the world, please get in touch with us via our contact page.

We hope this newsletter issue finds you well and successful - we look forward to hearing from you!

Testimonials from organizations hosted by WAYS

"Running a network of young researchers is as rewarding as it is challenging: When the Permafrost Young Researchers Network was founded in 2005, it started as a very low-key internet platform attempting to bring together a few young researchers to discuss science issues. A few years later, it grew to about 500 members; the amount of work required to update the web platform and provide content to the members in a very top-down manner soon proved to be unsustainable. That's when the World Association of Young Scientists (WAYS) stepped in and offered its services to handle most of the web-features that PYRN had been struggling to maintain. In addition, WAYS offered PYRN everything it needed: support and an incredible range of tools that allowed the network to thrive through member contributions, blogs, videos, etc. Using the time freed up though WAYS' support, the PYRN is now focusing on developing new activities, organising workshops for young resarchers, and bringing young researchers in the field in the Arctic. Thus, the help from WAYS has allowed the PYRN to dedicate its time to the needs of its members. The PYRN had a positive experience with WAYS and would certainly recommend their services to other organizations." - Hugues Lantuit

Visit PYRN

"As a member of the Board of the French-German young scientists association (Giraf), I must underline the manifold advantages of using the WAYS platform.

Ways allowed our association to build and host a collaborative website, which is of crucial importance for an organization such as ours that is a pure network and has almost no "center". We can manage the administration of our association online (using forums, newletters, etc.), including procedures of devolution for the administration of sub-groups (local groups e.g.). The web site also enabled us to create many scientific subgroups (a blog and a newletter for philosophy, another one for sociology...), thus empowering many sub-networks within our association. Finally, Ways empowered our association by giving us a better visibility and offering us the possibility of a both genuine and rigorous scientific networking. I highly recommend it!" - Philippe Lacour, GIRAF-IFFD

Visit GIRAF-IFFD