The Global Research Alliance would like to wish all our Members, Partners and friends a happy holiday season.

The 2017 meeting of the Livestock Research Group (LRG) will be hosted by the United States Government at the USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture (NIFA) Waterfront Centre in Washington DC on 11-12 April 2017.

The meeting will be structured to explore the flagship programmes of relevance to the LRG that were adopted by the Council meeting in October 2016 – enteric methane mitigation, soil carbon and GHG inventories.

The first meeting of the Integrative Research Group (IRG) will be held 19-20 January 2017 in Rome, Italy, at the Italian Research Centre for soil-Plant System studies (CREA-RPS).

This meeting will be the opportunity to review on-going activities of member countries and associated partners and to discuss the work of the IRG and its five research networks. The meeting will be an important milestone for the development of two flagships: Soil carbon sequestration and GHG inventories.

The Global Research Alliance is delighted to welcome our 47th Member Country, South Africa. South Africa has already been involved in stocktakes and regional workshops run by the Livestock Research Group, and newer areas of interest include topics such as GHG Inventories. We look forward to continuing to work together to grow more food without growing more greenhouse gases.

The Global Research Alliance is very pleased to welcome the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE_JPI) on board as a Partner.

FACCE-JPI provides and steers research to support sustainable agricultural production and economic growth, to contribute to a European bio-based economy, while maintaining and restoring ecosystem services under current and future climate change.

Both the GRA and FACCE-JPI aim to enhance information exchange, cooperation, programme alignment and mutual learning of best practices in research programming. Expected collaborative activities include for example the development of joint research projects, programmes or actions, participation of FACCE-JPI representatives in GRA Flagship Projects, exchange on research methods and data sets and cooperation in the dissemination and valorisation of scientific results.

FACCE-JPI and the GRA have already cooperated successfully on several issues:

• FACCE-JPI launched a Multi-partner Call on GHG Mitigation, with 3 GRA countries (USA, New Zealand, Canada) in January 2013
• The Secretariats of both initiatives have held ongoing discussions on possible cooperation in soil-related research (in coordination with the 4/1000 research initiative)
• The Secretariats of both initiatives have shared good practices and approaches for international scientific cooperation.
• The GRA is represents on the FACCE-JPI Stakeholder Advisory Board.

Out of the 46 GRA members, 15 are also members/associated members in FACCE-JPI.

Visit the FACCE-JPI website

Read the new December 2016 FACCE-JAI newsletter

The 3^rd workshop on Creating Impacts with Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition will be held 13-15 February 2017 in the Hague.

The 1^st and 2^nd international workshop on ‘Creating Impacts with Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition’ greatly helped to shape the action agenda for achieving impact with open data. Now the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands, Global Alliance Partners CABI and GODAN, and CTA and Wageningen UR have partnered to organise the 3^rdInternational Workshop on Creating Impacts, from 13-15 February 2017 at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Hague, Netherlands.

The objectives of this 3^rd workshop are:

• To build action agendas to strengthen the role of open data in achieving sustainable production of food at lower environmental and social costs  from both a public and private sector perspective;
• To identify  and scope Big Wins of Open Data towards impact and build collaborative partnerships for implementation;
• To develop organizational and practical capacities for working with open data in a meaningful way.

For more information and program outline:

View the announcement

Visit the website

Thoughts, suggestions or contributions for the program as described in the announcement, and possibilities for organizing side sessions will be considered.

Register here