ARF News

On 9 and 10 December, the Food & Business Research Final Conference “Scaling Insights for Sustainable Food Systems” took place online with participants from all over the world. The conference was organized by NWO-WOTRO and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform to enlarge the impact of the 75 Food & Business Research projects (Applied Research Fund and Global Challenges Programme), bring together insights and outcomes, and discuss implications for future Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) (research) programmes. »

During a three-day workshop in Cotonou end November 2019, all Applied Research Fund (ARF) projects of NWO-WOTRO in Benin got together. Since these projects are finished or almost finalised, it was time to take stock of their outcomes, share lessons learned, and tackle issues related to scaling-up of project results. The final report (in French) and video are now available. »

”We need a paradigm shift to involve unusual suspects in research partnerships to foster the scaling of research and innovation on food and nutrition security”, was one of the conclusions during the ARF country workshop in Benin. Representatives of eleven Beninese ARF projects gathered in Cotonou from November 20 to 22, 2019 to take stock of lessons learned and outcomes and to jointly reflect, learn and work on further uptake of results. »

An Applied Research Fund (ARF) country workshop will take place in Benin on November 20 to 22, 2019. Most of the eleven ARF projects running in Benin have finalized or are about to be finished. They will share their lessons learned and discuss issues related to result uptake and scaling opportunities. »

A three-day workshop “Strengthening Ugandan Food and Nutrition Security in policy and practice – Scaling innovations from food and agricultural research” was organized in June by NWO-WOTRO, F&BKP and AgriProFocus Uganda. Aim of the workshop was to take stock of the insights and outcomes of the ARF projects in Uganda. »

Representatives of eight Ugandan Applied Research Fund projects gathered for a country workshop in Kampala on June 18-20, 2019. Since most of the projects are finalized, it was time to take stock of the insights and outcomes, jointly reflect, learn and work on further uptake of results. The main theme was the issue of scaling innovations from food and agricultural research and how this can be enabled in Ugandan policy and practice. »

The Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF) addresses the knowledge and research needs of partners in the bilateral food security programmes of the 15 Dutch development cooperation partner countries and focuses on food security as a local challenge. From June 18 to 20, 2019 an ARF country workshop takes place in Uganda: all Uganda-based projects have now published factsheets with their midterm or final research results. »

The Third International Workshop of the Applied Research Fund (ARF) took place from February 13 till 16, 2018 in Addis Ababa. The focus of this workshop was to enhance research impact for Food and Nutrition Security by strengthening the competence of ARF project consortium members in the areas of theory of change development, impact pathways, knowledge co-creation, and research uptake. »

A video impression of the public seminar “The potential of value chains for nutrition: Knowledge exchange for better informed policies and practices”, which took place on February 16 in Addis Ababa. »

Africano Kangire (PhD) is principal investigator on the Applied Research Fund project IRESO in Uganda. In this blog he describes his reflections on the main concept of the international ARF workshop in February 2018, aiming at the improvement of research for business and food security development through co-creation and research uptake. »

An overview of an address to the Public Seminar on “The potential of value chains for nutrition:  A knowledge exchange for better informed policies and practices” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Written by Namukolo Covic (Senior Research Coordinator) & Belay Terefe (Research Associate) of A4NH in Ethiopia. »

The third international workshop of the Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF) took place from February 13 to 16, 2018, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The workshop focused on on co-creation and research uptake and was organized by NWO-WOTRO and the F&BKP, in collaboration with AgriProFocus and IFPRI Ethiopia. The public seminar on the third day was entitled “The potential for nutrition-sensitive value chains”. »

The F&BKP, together with NWO-WOTRO, has published a special edition of the F&BKP newsletter, dedicated to the research projects funded within the first call of the Applied Research Fund (ARF-1). The newsletter features the ARF Brochure in which the programme is presented, ARF factsheets from eight ARF-1 projects and one finalized ARF-2 project, and other outputs from the research projects. »

Achieving food and nutrition security for all is a global challenge, which is closely associated with efforts to end poverty, mitigate the effects of climate change and stop the worldwide depletion of natural capital. The Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF) aims to contribute, be it in a modest way, to tackling this urgent global challenge. Now that the ARF has reached the halfway point a brochure has been developed with experiences from partner perspectives so far. »

The Dutch Food & Business Knowledge Platform (F&BKP) and the Applied Research Fund (ARF) and Global Challenges Programme (GCP) research projects have made a lot of progress in improving the link between research and policy. With most of the 75 ARF/CGP research projects well under way, it is time to take stock. This was the purpose of the conference “Research & policy: two peas in a pod? A dialogue for food security impact” organized by F&BKP and NWO-WOTRO. »

A blog by the Governance and Inclusive Development group. Research & policy related to food security: can they be seen as two peas in a pod? Or are bridges between the ‘world of research’ and the ‘world of science’ still scarce and hard to build? The Food & Business Knowledge Platform and NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development organized a conference with the aim to improve the links between research and policy. »

Developing economies are facing major, complex challenges to eradicate poverty, ensure food security and promote economic growth. As global community, we need to increase efforts to deliver on our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Researchers work in consortia with policy makers and practitioners to jointly work on challenges. Together they develop and make knowledge and practices available, and help drive innovative solutions for development. »

NWO-WOTRO and the F&BKP, in close cooperation with the Dutch Ministries of Foreign and Economic Affairs are organizing a conference”Research & Policy: two peas in a pod? A dialogue for food security impact”, on December 1, 2017 in The Hague, the Netherlands. Concept notes of the thematic session are now available in PDF. »

A detailed report of the Applied Research Fund (ARF) country workshop which was held in Uganda in January 2017, is now published online. Representatives of nine ARF projects – from research, the private sector, civil society and governmental agencies – gathered for this country workshop in Entebbe. »

Nine new projects under the second round of the third call of the Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF) have received funding from NWO-WOTRO. The new ARF projects will start in the next few months and will take up to three years. »

In October 2016 ARF-2 project members met for a learning exchange during the second International workshop of the Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF) in Cotonou, Benin. The workshop focused on knowledge exchange and strategies of co-creation and research uptake. »

Representatives of nine Applied Research Fund (ARF) projects – from research, the private sector and NGOs and governmental agencies – gathered for a country workshop in Entebbe on the 26th and the 27th of January. They discussed and reflected upon emerging findings and results of research on food security and private sector development. »

Representatives from research, the private sector, NGOs and governmental agencies from ARF and GCP research projects as well as interested experts all gathered recently in Ghana from 12 to 15 December, 2016. Ghanaian experts in the field of food security were also present. »

Practitioners and researchers of seventeen projects within the NWO-WOTRO Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF), gathered in a workshop in Benin from October 25 to 28, 2016. »

From Thursday October 1 until Saturday October 3, 2015 the “Food & Business Applied Research Fund (ARF) First Call projects and Competitive Research Fund (CRF) projects workshop” took place in Entebbe, Uganda. The final report, including links to all PowerPoint presentations, has been published now. »

Co-creation, stakeholder engagement and commercialization of knowledge were the central themes at the three-day-workshop on Food and Business Research in Uganda. About 40 project representatives and 25 external stakeholders actively engaged to enhance the uptake of research with a strong focus on SMEs. »

From November 11 till 14, 2014, a ‘write-shop’ targeting the second Call of the Applied Research Fund (ARF) took place in Uganda. This NWO-WOTRO fund provides grants to applied research contributing to innovation for food security and private sector development in the 15 partner countries of Dutch development cooperation. All research is jointly conducted by local practitioners’ organizations, research, and/or higher education organizations. »

The popular summaries of the eight research projects that recently received funding in the third round of the first call of the Applied Research Fund (ARF) are now published on the NWO-WOTRO website. Also the summaries of the five awarded projects of the first Global Challenges Programme (GCP) call can be found there. »