>
■
■
■
6
7
© IRD/M. Grouzis
<
Research, applications, training and communication
■
RESEARCH
Understanding and managing the global environment
■
Fostering sustainable use of living resources
15
Humanly viable development strategies
21
E X P E R T I S E A N D C O N S U LT I N G
Fruitful collaboration
■
26
SUPPORT AND TRAINING
Preparing for the future - together
■
9
28
I N F O R M AT I O N A N D C O M M U N I C AT I O N
Scientific information and science in society
32
>
■
■
■
8
9
© IRD/J.-Ph. Eissen
research
<
environment
Understanding and managing the global environment
The department’s research themes are also
changing. They now require multidisciplinary
approaches. To develop new methods and techniques, the DME teams collaborate with other
teams in the French scientific community. They
also form partnerships with universities in the
South, wherever research is active and co-operation and training lead to the emergence of
centres of excellence.
The department’s main research themes are as
follows:
- Continental water. Demand for continental
water has been growing in many tropical
regions, while climate change and the impact of
human activities cause drought, floods and soil
erosion due to runoff.
- Soils. Here the aim is to improve understanding of the processes involved in physical weathering (erosion) and chemical weathering (dissolution, salinisation and alkalinisation), which are
particularly active in the intertropical zone.
- Sustainable management of mineral and
energy resources. To address this question, IRD
scientists study the dynamics of soil and subsoil.
They take a similar approach to research on
natural hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic events.
The top three priority research themes at present are
Research in the Earth and
- Forecasting the impact of climate variations
like those caused by El Niño. This requires a
more thorough knowledge of past climates – a
relatively new branch of science. Data on
ancient climates can also be extracted from glaciers, sediments and corals – they are our “natural archives”.
impact of climate and human activities on
water resources
Analysing the functioning of catchment basins
and integrating these processes into predictive
mathematical models will help to improve
resource management.
is designed to deepen under-
functioning of marine and continental
aquatic ecosystems
This too is aimed at promoting the emergence
of sustainable management. Decision-making
aids will be developed on the basis of predictive
models that take into account environmental,
social and economic parameters.
bedrock to atmosphere, taking
- Management of coastal zones. This is
becoming an increasingly complicated task,
owing to the impact of climate change and
human activities. In this research field the IRD is
collaborating with several institutes, particularly
in French Guiana, New Caledonia and Reunion
Island.
- The intertropical zone of the oceans is now
known to be the engine that drives the world’s
climate. The IRD has made this subject one if its
specialities, and is working in partnership with
the French National Centre for Scientific
Research (CNRS), the French Space Agency
(CNES) and leading universities in major research
units: the climatology and dynamic oceanography laboratory LODYC in Paris, and LEGOS, the
space-based oceanography and geophysics laboratory in Toulouse.
new priorities
At the heart of the department’s new priorities
is the drive to understand the role of the climate
in Southern countries. The focus is on exploiting
satellite sensor data coupled with ground data
and setting up operational monitoring systems, as
with the Mercator project (www.mercator.com.fr).
Environment department (DME)
standing of environmental
phenomena and assess the
resources and hazards of our
planet’s geobiosphere, from
into consideration the influence
of living things, including
humans, on environmental
change.
dynamics and uses of terrestrial environments
Scientists are trying to understand both natural
environments and those affected by human
activity, and to forecast the related hazards. This
implies analysing geological phenomena and
interactions between soils, vegetation and climate in space and time.
It is essential to co-ordinate research through
networks such as the Long Term Ecological
Monitoring Observatories Network (ROSELT),
which monitors desertification in Africa. ■
© IRD-APFT/S. Carrière
F
RENCH RESEARCH is based on a network of
public research institutes and higher
education facilities. Graduate schools,
where teams are formed according to
speciality, are now an essential component in the national system for training
scientists in research. The IRD has adapted to
this characteristic by creating several environmental research units based on collaboration
between graduate schools and the IRD’s Earth
and Environment department.
>
■
Water resources and glacial hazards in the Andes
■
T
HERE ARE FEW TROPICAL GLACIERS left in the
world; those that remain are in East
Africa, Indonesia and Latin America. They
are an essential source of water for
nearby populations and are also of interest to science because of the natural
record of past climate changes they contain.
terrain of the White Cordillera is the focus of joint research by
scientists from the IRD and Peru’s National Institute of Natural
Resources (INRENA: see box), which has records of the glacier’s
retreat going right back to 1932.
Glacial lagoon, Peru
The scientific principle is to analyse current processes to establish a mathematical model, then check the model’s validity by
historical reconstitutions before using it to make forecasts.
Most of the glaciers in Latin America are in the
Andes: in Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. These
tropical glaciers are especially sensitive to climatic
variation and in particular to El Niño. They have been
shrinking fast over the past thirty years.
© IRD/P. Wagnon
Since 1991, a team of IRD glaciologists and hydrologists, along with their South American and European
partners, have been studying the dynamics of ice and
water in the tropical Andes and their relations with
climate variations.
climate change: economic and social
implications
Research begun in Bolivia has been extended to Peru
and Ecuador, first under the tropical snow and ice
(NGT) programme and then by the IRD’s “GREAT ICE”
research unit (the acronym comes from “Glaciers,
Ressources en Eau des Andes Tropicales – Indicateurs
Climatiques et Environnement”). Run in close cooperation with the IRD’s partners in the three countries concerned, the research is designed to answer
questions that are vital to the partners: Can we
estimate the water resource these glaciers represent, and the variability of that resource? How can
we avoid the consequences of climate change and
the risk of glacier accidents? In Peru especially,
these questions have direct economic and social
implications. Therefore, the IRD team has taken
up residence in Peru’s National Meteorology and
Hydrology Department (SENAMHI), which has an
outstanding hydrometeorological database
built up since 1953. Moreover the exceptional
10
11
Ice core from the volcano Chimborazo, Ecuador
ineluctable reversal
Analysis of Peru’s outstanding historical data series has enabled
the scientists to establish a clear relationship over the past fifty
years between the water resource and the percentage of ice
cover. They have also found a clear correlation between atmospheric temperature trends above the White Cordillera and
water resource trends in catchment basins with a high proportion of glacial input, on both intra- and inter-annual timescales.
On a much larger timescale, links between climate variations
and the characteristics recorded in tropical glaciers can be discovered from ice cores; IRD scientists have been drilling such
cores in the glaciers since 1997.
In the short term, these
links, crossed with predictive
models of climate change,
will improve our ability to
predict water resource
trends. At present the
resource is actually increasing as a result of deglaciation – but how long will that
continue, and on what
scale? Inevitably, a moment
will come when water
becomes scarcer because
the glaciers are too small to
fulfil their regulating role - but when? IRD researchers are
seeking precise answers to these questions. ■
Contact: Bernard Pouyaud
pouyaud@amauta.rcp.net.pe
Pierre Ribstein
ribstein@msem.univ-montp2.fr
© IRD/M.-N. Favier
■
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Marco Zapata, director of the Glaciogy and Water Resources
Unit (UGRH) of Peru’s National Natural Resources Institute (INRENA)
R
ELATIONS between the UGRH and
ORSTOM – as it then was – date
from 1982. But it was in 2001
that INRENA and the renamed
IRD signed a co-operation agreement to
study changes in the Peruvian glaciers
and climate.
The IRD gives us invaluable help in key
fields: equipment and instrumentation,
techniques (e.g. monitoring glacial
flow, inspecting dangerous sites), staff
training, and financing international
scientific and technical exchange trips.
We are very grateful to the IRD and
especially to the GREAT ICE unit, whose
work is helping enormously to reactivate and develop research into Peruvian glaciers. ■
research
<
© IRD/L. Charpy
Marine
cyanobacteria fix
atmospheric
nitrogen
bloom or accumulation?
The Cyano research unit and the IRD climatology and dynamic
oceanography laboratory LODYC, together with the oceanography and biochemistry laboratory LOB (see box), have initiated
a research programme on diazotrophy in the waters of New
Caledonia, an area where dense Trichodesmium biomass is
often observed. The programme, entitled Diapazon, is funded
by the IRD and the national programme on biogeochemical
processes in oceans and flows (PROOF). In 2001 and 2002,
seven measurement surveys were conducted in the Loyalty
Islands channel, with the IRD’s oceanographic vessel Alis: the
abundance of Trichodesmium, rates of nitrogen fixation and
phosphorus and carbon assimilation were quantified, as were
the levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and iron in the water. The
areas where phytoplankton was abundant were located from
satellite images.
Sampling cyanobacteria, New Caledonia
Major Trichodesmium concentrations were observed during
only two of the surveys, so it was possible to compare the
intensity of diazotrophy with the amount of Trichodesmium
biomass. But the cause of these concentrations has yet to be
found: it may be either multiplication (“bloom”) or accumulation due to physical processes. We also need to monitor biomass over time and space and identify the environmental
parameters involved. The Cyano unit conducts regular checks
of the various parameters in the New Caledonia lagoon as part
of the national programme on coastal environments (PNEC).
programmed cell death
The study of processes connected with the growth and fate of
Trichodesmium began in late 2002 at the IRD centre in
Nouméa, where French, Israeli and American scientists met for
a workshop. They have shown that under biological stress
these organisms undergo a process of programmed death,
releasing dissolved chemical compounds. Another workshop is
planned for 2004.
Meanwhile, we can already draw the following conclusions:
Trichodesmium are constantly to be observed in the waters of
New Caledonia, along with a low rate of diazotrophy which is
probably due to Trichodesmium, but possibly also to other
cyanobacteria. Phosphorus, which is particularly scarce, seems
to be one of the main factors controlling the process.. ■
Contact: Loïc Charpy
lcharpy@com.univ-mrs.fr
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Patrick Raimbault, head of the Oceanography and Biochemistry
Laboratory (LOB), Marseille
L
can be used equally well in the ocean
or the lagoon. The LOB is closely
involved in this research partnership: a
doctoral thesis is under way in our laboratory on the role of phosphorus in limiting the production of Trichodesmium
and phytoplankton in general. Two of
our scientists took part in all the
Diapalis measurement surveys in 2002.
Numerous scientific articles are being
written, jointly signed by the IRD and LOB
scientists. ■
OB is a joint research unit (UMR
6535) of the CNRS within the
Marseille Oceanography Centre.
Our research field concerns the
biogeochemical cycles of the elements
that go to make up living things in
marine environments: carbon, nitrogen,
phosphorus and silicon. It is under the
Diapazon programme in New Caledonia
that we have focused on diazotrophy.
We have developed a method for measuring the rate of nitrogen fixation that
© IRD/L. Charpy
N
ITROGEN is regarded as the main chemical element
whose scarcity limits the production of organic matter in the oceans. In the intertropical zone, this primary biomass production is mainly the work of
cyanobacteria. Some cyanobacteria are able to fix
atmospheric nitrogen dissolved in seawater – a
process known as diazotrophy – so overcoming at least a part
of the nitrogen limitation. One nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium,
called Trichodesmium, is found in large numbers in waters that
are very poor in nutrient salts. The international scientific community is looking into the possible causes of these local proliferations of Trichodesmium and the contribution these organisms make to the carbon and nitrogen cycles in the oceans.
Trichodesmium
filamentous bacteria
>
■
The African monsoon
■
■
ROM THE END of the 1960s to the mid-1990s,
West Africa suffered a drought of
unequalled intensity, duration and geographical extent. This unexplained phenomenon raises crucial questions for sustainable development in the region, especially as regards the impact of the drought on land
degradation, food security and water resources.
F
West African rainfall patterns are governed by a
monsoon system. To improve forecasting of variations in this system, a major international research
programme on the African monsoon (AMMA) has
been set up, led by French research bodies and with
the close collaboration of African institutions. The scientific
purpose of the research is to improve understanding of the
mechanisms that govern monsoon variability and to characterise the impact of this variability on water resources, food
security and health. The work involves comparing observations, analysing data, making mathematical models and
designing aids for decision-making at various levels.
The project should produce general long-term climate change
scenarios and also improve seasonal forecasting capability,
which is essential for anticipating food crises. ■
Contact: Thierry Lebel
thierry.lebel@hmg.inpg.fr
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Abel Afouda, professor of
mathematics at Cotonou
University, Benin
Sandstorm,
Burkina Faso
12
13
© IRD/F. Sodter
O
UR PARTNERSHIP with the Institute
began more than forty years
ago, but a new impetus for cooperation was launched in 1996
with the AMMA-CATCH programme on
coupling the tropical atmosphere to the
hydrologic cycle.
A team of researchers from the
Grenoble-based Laboratory for the
Study of Transfers in Hydrology and
Environment (LTHE), came to work in
Benin, and this has produced behavioural changes in our research structures: a young AMMA-Benin team is
now being formed, incorporating
researchers from the science and tech-
nology faculty, the agricultural science
faculty and the arts faculty.
In this way our co-operation with the IRD
has enabled us to break out of the usual
compartmentalisation between research
fields and institutions. And the skills of
our young team have been consolidated
by the many-faceted support the IRD
gives us.
The need to anchor our young team in a
teaching and research institution led to
the creation of an Applied Hydrodynamics and Modelling Laboratory and the
introduction of a Masters in Water and
Environmental Sciences. Looking to the
future, this partnership with the IRD
strengthens local research capacity,
helps to keep young scientists in the
country and increases direct economic
spin-off from research results. ■
research
Snow: a water
reserve for
the Middle East?
© IRD/J.-O. Job
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Wajdi Najem, dean of the Engineering faculty, Saint-Joseph
University, Beirut, Lebanon:
T
A
LTHOUGH THE MEDITERRANEAN climate is hot, the
Mediterranean sea is surrounded by mountains,
and snow is part of its landscape and culture. In the
past, it has even been part of its trade: Fernand
Braudel reports that in 1578 Mehmet Pasha earned
up to 80,000 sequins a year trading in snow.
Things have changed since then: now, as the twenty-first century gets under way, the main preoccupation of Middle Eastern
governments is to make sure they will have enough water in
future to supply their fast-growing populations.
Estimates of water resources in Lebanon have so far been unreliable; none of them account with any precision for the input
of mountain snow cover, for want of tools to quantify that
potential. Now, in collaborative research that began in 1999,
scientists from the IRD and Saint-Joseph University in Beirut
have examined the physical characteristics of the snow – its
porosity and water content – and shown that, volume for volume, more water is immobilised in the snow in the
Mediterranean coastal zone than in the snow on the mountains of continental Europe.
There are two reasons for this. In the first place, clouds have a
long way to travel along the Mediterranean, gathering moisture as they go, before they reach the coast of Lebanon.
© IRD/J.-O. Job
Transhumance in the Lebanese mountains (7,800 ft) in early summer
Installing a wind
measurement
station at 8,070 ft
(Mount Lebanon)
Secondly, because Mount Lebanon is both close to the coast
and steep, the clouds cool very rapidly. The combined result is
that the snow produced here has twice the water content as
the same volume of snow falling at the same altitude on the
Alps, for example.
As the predominant winds are south-westerly, the snow accumulates mainly in deep talwegs on north-eastern faces, sheltered from the sun. There, the snow can be as much as six
metres deep at an altitude where the average depth is two
metres. This snow persists, repeatedly thawing and freezing
HE IRD has been with us since
1998, when the Regional
Water and Environment Centre
(CREEN), which I direct, launched
a research programme on snow hydrology in the Mediterranean in partnership
with it. The first results of this research
were presented at an international seminar on Mediterranean snow hydrology
that we held in Beirut in December 2002.
Jean-Olivier Job, who is our scientific
partner from IRD for this project and
deputy director of CREEN, is also working
with us on modelling the annual thaw
and the re-emergence of snowmelt in
springs in limestone karst country. Avignon University is also collaborating in
this research. We are also working with
other IRD teams on conceptual modelling
of runoff in small Mediterranean catchments, on rainfall variability in the
Mediterranean, on the use of remote
sensing and radar imagery to study
moisture distribution in soils, and in the
World Meteorological Organisation’s
MEDHYCOS monitoring network. ■
where it lies, and can be seen lying in zebra stripes on the
mountainsides until early summer. Melting, it feeds springs
that flow into small catchment basins and supply Lebanon’s
high value-added mountain tree crops.
The results of this preliminary research, and studies conducted in
other Mediterranean countries, were discussed at a first international seminar on Mediterranean snow hydrology held in Beirut
in December 2002, attended by more than sixty researchers from
eight countries. ■
Contact: Jean-Olivier Job
jojob@usj.edu.lb
<
>
■
■
■
14
15
© IRD-APFT/S. Carrière
recherche
research
living resources
Fostering sustainable use of living resources
The IRD’s partners in these joint units are Paris
VI, Paris VII, Paris XII, Versailles-Saint-Quentin
and Perpignan Universities, the National
Agronomy School in Montpellier (ENSAM), the
CNRS, the National Institute for Agricultural
Research (INRA) and the French Agricultural
Research Centre for International Development
(CIRAD). Six of these units were favourably reevaluated in 2002; the other two were only
recently set up.
training research teams from
the South
The department is building and diversifying its
partnerships in the South. All the research
teams work with scientists from the host country. With assistance from the Support and
Training Department (DSF), special emphasis is
placed on training young researchers and helping new teams to become autonomous.
In 2002, 46 doctoral students from Southern
countries were supervised and seven new
“young IRD partner teams” were set up, linked
to the Living Resources Department. These
include a team in Senegal researching microbial
symbiosis and a team in Burkina-Faso working
on the biology of cultivated soils.
Support for local research facilities has also
been increased. In Ecuador, for example, the
Catholic Pontifical University received equipment for its plant genetics and entomovirology
laboratories (working on controlling the
Guatemala moth) and training in leading-edge
techniques (molecular biology, virology) delivered by researchers from the department.
The department co-operates actively with international agricultural research centres. For example, a major programme on rice genomics is
under way at the International Centre for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia, in partnership with CIRAD, the CNRS and INRA. Joint
studies are being conducted in Kenya on plantinsect relationships and in South-East Asia on
erosion in cultivated soils.
In the context of the alarming decline in marine
resources, researchers have been focusing on
tuna ecosystems, industrial fishing of small
pelagic fish (anchovies, sardines, etc.) and subsistence fishing in coastal zones and coral reefs.
In addition, three units from the department are
studying trophic balance in fresh and brackish
water in Africa and South America, in relation
to the spread of aquaculture.
Several programmes reached their term in
2002. Together with the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI), CIRAD and Vietnam’s
National Agronomical Sciences Institute, one
unit of the department had been working for
many years on mountain farming systems. A
Vietnamese team trained during the programme will now carry on this work.
In Madagascar, a study of ecological changes
linked to the conversion of forest areas into
grazing land concluded with a dissemination
seminar at which a summary report was distributed. A new programme, supported by the
Living Resources Department, will be conducted
mainly by Malagasy partners concerned by the
future of the upland forests, which are in great
danger from clearance for farmland. ■
In 2002 eight new research units
were set up, taking the staff
of the Living Resources
Department (DRV) to almost
375 researchers, engineers and
technicians working in 37 units,
reflecting the dynamism
of this research component.
Seeking complementarity,
the teams work closely with
partners from research organisations in both North and South.
© IRD-APFT/S. Carrière
R
esearch at the Living Resources
Department covers four main areas:
- agricultural and microbial biodiversity,
- animal and plant communities,
- terrestrial ecosystems and resources,
- aquatic ecology and fisheries science.
The department has a strong policy of national
partnerships. Teams are involved in eight joint
research units on the following themes: cultivated tropical plants (genetics, genomics, symbiosis and physiology), terrestrial ecology (soil
biology, pests, tropical forests), marine biodiversity, and links between ecological economy,
development and governance.
<
>
■
Managing biodiversity in tropical rainforests
■
■
T
ROPICAL RAINFORESTS are home to numerous
tree species. What biological processes are
at work in the spatial organisation of this
diversity, and how can these processes be
integrated into forest management? IRD
scientists studying this subject have for the
first time validated an “intermediate disturbance”
hypothesis for these ecosystems: natural treefall creates gaps in the forest canopy, locally modifying such
environmental conditions as sunlight, humidity, etc.;
the spatial variability of these disturbances has a
direct influence on species distribution. This hypothesis was tested and validated by a study of 17,000 trees
in French Guiana.
© IRD/M. Hoff
opportunities for different species to seed) on small undisturbed plots and others subjected to different types of logging. Now the researchers hope to study larger areas such as
entire forests or regions in order to assess the usefulness of
their conclusions for forest management and biodiversity
preservation. Other factors to be taken into account are population history, geology, soils, climate, the architecture of the
trees and its connection with their physiology.
integrating the impact of logging
The IRD team has shown the importance of diversity
in the surrounding environment (and consequently
A programme to study several square kilometres of forest is
just starting up in French Guiana, in co-operation with scientists from INRA (National Institute for Agricultural Research),
CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International
Development) and ENGREF (French Institute of Forestry,
Agricultural and Environmental Engineering). ■
Contact: Daniel Sabatier
sabatier@mpl.ird.fr
Amazonian forest in French Guiana
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury, researcher at
I
N ITS WORK
on tropical rainforests,
Annona prevostiae,
a newly described
tree species
in the forest
of French Guiana
16
17
© IRD/D. Sabatier
CIRAD -Forestry focused for many
years on timber production and its
sustainability, but changes in the very
notions of management and sustainable
development have recently led us to consider many other aspects as well.
Ecological concerns such as changes in
genetic, floristic and functional diversity,
and the consequent practical problems
faced by forest managers, have become
CIRAD-Forestry
the centre of our concerns. As a result,
we now need a better understanding of
the ecological system and the functional
roles of different aspects of diversity.
So since 1999 we have been working
more closely with the IRD on the themes
of functional and species diversity. True
synergies – vital in this field – have
developed between CIRAD -Forestry and
the IRD , based on our highly complementary skills and approaches. ■
research
new instruments
What exactly is a school? How is it organised and what roles
does it play? To observe individual dynamics, group structures
and relationships between the two, the UR061 research unit
designed or adapted a number of new 3D acoustical, electronic
marking and video instruments in 2002. Researchers then used
these instruments to observe and analyse how various species
of horse mackerel (carangids) and tuna aggregate and move
about, to assess school duration and relationships between
individuals, and to test theories such as the “meeting point”
hypothesis – according to which schools regroup more quickly
around a floating object.
A number of new conclusions were reached: schools are complex, heterogeneous structures with dense cores and empty
spaces. They are the result of contradictory behavioural constraints – group polarisation and a fixed distance between individuals in the group on the one hand, and the inability to stay
together when the group becomes too large on the other.
Pelagics fish schools have many predators
T
HE PURPOSE OF FISHERY SCIENCE,
or halieutics, is to achieve
better management of the species fished. Recent
research has shown that to understand the behavioural
dynamics of a species, it must be studied in its own
ecosystem (eco-ethology). In the case of pelagic fish,
i.e. fish living in the open sea, the school seems to act
as an interface between the individual fish and its environment.
Schools play an important part in relationships between species
(particularly between predators and prey), in adaptation to the
environment and in the efficiency and impact of fishing – all reasons for further research in this area.
a contribution to adaptation
The similarities and differences between large and small pelagic
fish – Clupeidae (sardines, anchovies etc.), Carangidae, tuna –
were analysed at a seminar the research unit organised in
Hawaii, in October 2002. This comparison showed that different
species have comparable attraction mechanisms but their exact
behaviours differ. Various motivations specific to each species
lead to differences in the duration and organisation of schools.
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Mr. Renato Guevara, scientific director of
T
40 years of statistics) available to the IRD.
In 2002, our institute and the IRD
worked together in many ways: data
analysis, group training sessions,
management of a higher education
programme (Magister) and participation in workshops, international conferences and scientific publications. In
addition, the IRD is helping us study the
Humboldt marine system as part of the
World Bank’s “Large Marine Ecosystems” programme.
We are particularly pleased to co-operate with the IRD because its organisation suits our requirements and we
truly need Northern scientists on our
research teams. ■
HE P ERUVIAN GOVERNMENT has
mandated IMARPE to carry out
research to manage the country’s marine ecosystem, which
furnishes between 15% and 30% of
the world’s fish production. We primarily assess abundance, and have
developed real-time management
methods for the main stocks.
Yet many questions remain unanswered. For example, how do variations in climate affect fish populations’
behaviours? To answer this and other
questions, we are working with IRD
research unit 061 and regional partners, and have made our fish database
(one of the world’s largest, with
This comparative approach is particularly useful in understanding how schools help pelagic fish adapt, whether they be predators like tuna or prey like anchovies. ■
Contact: François Gerlotto
fgerlotto@ifop.cl
IMARPE,
Peru’s National Oceanographic Institute
One way to escape
predators is to merge
with the crowd
© IRD/F. Gerlotto
©IRD/A. Bertrand
A model based on these conclusions was presented in June
2002 at a symposium organised by the UR061 unit under the
auspices of the International Council for the Exploration of the
Seas (ICES). The symposium, entitled “Acoustics applied to
aquatic ecosystems”, drew 320 participants from 40 countries.
The model can be used for work on relationships between
species and the impact of these relationships on the dynamics
of each species, and in particular to test hypotheses on the
“trapping” of minority species in schools of dominant species.
Fish schools:
individual dynamics
and group structure
<
>
■
Agriculture and erosion in the mountains of Laos
■
I
N LAOS, 80% of rural families practice itinerant
slash-and-burn farming. This was a productive
method when land was allowed to lie fallow for
long periods, but now that fallow periods have
been reduced to two or three years, crops are
being invaded by weeds. This has significantly
increased the time spent working in the fields
(210 days per hectare each year). The increase in
labour leads to another unsuspected problem: in the
highlands, the more the soil is tilled, the greater the
erosion from runoff. Studies by the IRD, NAFRI (Laos’
National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute)
and the IWMI (International Water Management
Institute) on small catchments in northern Laos have
shown that short-rotation slash-and-burn agriculture
leads to the erosion of nearly 6 tons of soil per
hectare per year.
Field strips (290 m long)
on a 70% slope,
northern Laos
Their conclusions are clear:
- when land has lain fallow for over eight years, weeds are easily controlled with a single hoeing;
- for fallow periods of five to eight years, the land must be
hoed twice;
- for fallow periods of less than five years, weeds appear so quickly
after burning that fields must also be hoed before sowing;
© IRD/Ch. Valentin
■
- and for fallow periods of under three years, a third weeding
is required, i.e., the land must be tilled four times in all.
Among the new techniques tested, sowing
under vegetation cover
(tested in co-operation
with CIRAD, the French agricultural research centre for international development) seems viable because it eliminates
tillage erosion and considerably reduces water erosion (from
6 tons/ha/year to less than 1 ton/ha/year). ■
Contact: Christian Valentin
valentinird@laopdr.com
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
runoff erosion and tillage erosion
IRD researchers and their partners have retraced
the farming history of a 64-hectare catchment
from 1964 to the present.
18
19
Anolath Phantahvong,
director of the Soil Survey
and Land Classification Centre
(SSLCC), Laos
© IRD
A type of erosion that has long been neglected is
tillage erosion, i.e. the loss of soil clods as a direct
combined result of slope and tillage. This type of soil
loss increases exponentially with slope: from 1.8 tons
per hectare per year for a 30% slope to 21.3 tons
per hectare per year for a 100% slope. Other factors
also influence the amount of soil lost to this type of
erosion: vegetation cover, number of times the land
is tilled, depth reached by the implement, percentage of land area cultivated, etc. These variables in
turn depend on the density and type of weeds
infesting the crops.
Taking samples in a mountain rice field, northern Laos
one solution: sowing under vegetation cover
Researchers have used field experiments to establish a mathematical model of the increase in erosion as a function of fallow times. The model shows that the reduction in fallow times
in the past thirty years has led to a 1300% increase in tillage
erosion. The increased erosion has in turn impacted on soil fertility, which now varies much more from place to place, resulting in much greater variability in crop cover and yield.
M
with the IRD
was in 1998, at a meeting of
the Soil Erosion Management Consortium in Hanoi,
where I met Christian Valentin.
Christian and two of his colleagues at
the IRD helped us select a catchment to
study how changes in land use have
affected erosion, and trained our staff to
set up the hydrological apparatus, take
field measurements and analyse data.
Y FIRST CONTACT
In 2001, this partnership was
enhanced with the arrival of four IRD
colleagues at our centre. Six people
from the IRD now work with us on the
MSEC programme in Laos. They devote
a great deal of time to training our staff
and Laotian students, and so contribute
to our long-term research capability.
They also work with farmers in the
highlands, testing crop systems that
could reduce erosion while increasing
farm incomes. Last but not least, they
are helping us to develop forecasting
tools for the Ministry of Agriculture and
Forests and to strengthen our regional
soil conservation research network. ■
research
T
HE CENTRE for Economics and Ethics relating to the
Environment and Development, a joint research unit
(UMR C3ED) run by the IRD and Versailles SaintQuentin University, has been involved since 2001 in
a research programme on sustainable development
in Madagascar.
Biodiversity
in Madagascar:
costs and benefits
The programme was designed in response to a major concern
of environmental policymakers in Madagascar: to develop sustainable alternatives to the current overexploitation of living
resources so as to rapidly pull the country out of poverty.
Run mainly by researchers in development and environmental
economics, the programme focuses on social issues (vulnerability assessment, governance studies, etc.) and environmental
issues (sustainable resource management, implementation of
environmental policies, etc.).
© IRD/Ch. Lévêque
economic value of biodiversity
These issues all relate to a key question in environmental
economics: how can we estimate the economic value of
biodiversity?
Applying the principles of cost-benefit analysis, the IRD
researchers and their partners have developed an original
methodology that integrates three types of data:
- opportunity cost, which measures the effects on income of a
physical change to the environment,
- analysis of actors’ strategies, which assesses how economic
agents make decisions according to their social and economic
environment and their perceptions of the future and the environment,
- sector studies, which analyse the operation, prices, volumes,
opportunities and restrictions of different commodity chains.
Traditional fishing in Madagascar
Using this method, researchers have been able to test the
capacity of ecotourism as an alternative to coastal fishing of
overexploited marine species, and marketing of medicinal
plants to preserve the south-western forests of Madagascar.
The results show clearly that these alternatives are not economically viable.
protected areas
Madagascar:
the forest
provides building timber and
charcoal
© IRD/B. Moizo
The destruction of forest and maize cultivation on land cleared
by slash-and-burn generate much higher income than medicinal plants. Even though the potential for economic value
seems high, the way the sector is structured would only bring
very small and unreliable economic benefits for local people.
Similarly, income from coastal ecotourism, at around 40 euros
a month for low-skilled jobs, is not high enough to encourage
a shift away from traditional fishing.
Since these findings, research has been redirected to protected
area projects and to pursuing sustainable management of the
resources concerned.
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Professor Jeannot Ramiaramanana, director of the Centre
for Economics and Ethics relating to the Environment and
Development in Madagascar, Antananarivo University
T
HE C3EDM , which was started
only two years ago, is fast
becoming a key contributor to
methodological and conceptual
thinking on the implementation of sustainable development in Madagascar.
One of our teams has been granted the
status of young IRD partner team. We
also intend to prepare new teachers by
providing support for student training.
Thanks to these young people, the future
of the laboratory is extremely promising.
Our originality and strength is the endur-
ing partnership between our university,
Versailles Saint-Quentin University and
the IRD , founded on a tripartite agreement. The C3EDM is forging more and
more scientific links through the researchers and teachers from the UMR C3ED .
Two post-graduate students started doctoral theses in our laboratory in 2002,
one of them with funding from the IRD .
In addition, many of the theses by our
Masters students in local development
and project management are supervised
by researchers from the UMR C3ED. ■
All these research activities are conducted through the partnership between the IRD, Versailles Saint-Quentin University
and Antananarivo University. The partnership was given concrete form with the launch of the Centre for Economics and
Ethics relating to the Environment and Development in
Madagascar (C3EDM), which now has 23 members. ■
Contact: Philippe Méral
pmeral@ird.mg
<
>
© IRD/K. Simondon
■
■
■
20
21
recherche
research
development
Humanly viable development strategies
Researchers in the department also tendered on
calls for proposals from French organisations
such as the French Biodiversity Institute and European bodies such as the Euro-Mediterranean
Partnership programme MEDA (local water management). They also established new co-operation agreements with French partners (armed
forces health service) and international partners
(Sun Yatsen University of Canton, China). Five
research units partner “Young IRD partner
teams” in Southern countries, and two interdepartmental thematic projects began: “Climate
change and health” and “Social, economic and
environmental effects of Protected Areas”.
humanities and social sciences
What is the impact of globalisation on Southern
countries, in terms of population dynamics, territorial recomposition, economic configurations,
distribution of income, knowledge and power,
relationships with the environment and redefinition of identities? These are the questions that
structure the work of the department’s 17
humanities and social sciences research units.
They are also questions that achieved a high
public profile in 2002 with the Johannesburg
summit; the collective volume Développement
durable?, co-ordinated by the IRD and published
on that occasion, reached a wide readership.
Among the year’s highlights were the
French/South African Scientific Conference on
Territorial Innovation, the joint symposium by
the IRD and the French University Institute for
Development Studies on “Development through
knowledge”, and the joint symposium between
the IRD and the International Association of
French-speaking Demographers on “Children
today”.
health
Most of the programmes conducted by the 16
health research units concern nutrition or infectious diseases that are major public health problems in Southern countries: malaria, AIDS,
African and American trypanosomiasis, tuberculosis and arbovirus diseases.
Some of the work is basic research (e.g. understanding transmission mechanisms), some is
more applied (e.g. therapeutic drugs, vaccines,
vector control), but all aims to improve disease
control. The accent is increasingly on demographic, socio-anthropological and economic
aspects of health issues, in line with the trend
among major international organisations, the
World Health Organisation (WHO) in particular.
In this connection, in 2002 IRD teams were
active participants in the European and
Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership
programme and major scientific conferences
such as the 14th International AIDS Conference,
the 3rd MIM (Multilateral Initiative on Malaria)
PanAfrican Conference, and the official closure
of the successful WHO onchocerciasis control
programme in West Africa.
Among the year’s outstanding scientific results
were the Senegalese initiative on access to antiretroviral drugs, in collaboration with the IRD
research unit on “Medical management of AIDS
in Africa”, and the confirmation by the research
unit on “Genetics of infectious diseases” of the
clonal model in the development of most protozoan parasites in humans.
The department was instrumental in setting
up the Epidemiology and Development network, a vehicle for multidisciplinary research
and discussion. ■
© IRD-APFT/S. Carrière
T
HE DEPARTMENT has adopted an unreservedly inter-disciplinary approach
and supports the trend towards
larger, more open research units, as
evidenced by the creation of three
new joint research units – one on HIV
and AIDS in Southern countries (with Montpellier University), one on the pharmacology of
natural substances and redox pharmacophores
(with Toulouse III University), and a Population
and Environment laboratory (with Aix-Marseille
I University). Along the same lines, in 2002 the
“Development and international integration”
partnership (GIS DIAL) became a GIP (partnership
of economic interest) and the Centre for Population and Development (GIS CEPED) was radically reshaped.
The purpose of the Societies
and Health department is to
analyse the human and social
aspects of development scientifically. This work involves a wide
range of disciplines, from
biology and epidemiology to
economics, anthropology and
geography. It focuses on phenomena of major importance
to countries of the South, such
as recent changes in employment, land tenure systems, the
mega-cities and the emergence
of hitherto unknown viral
diseases. This research helps
decision makers identify
progressive, humanly viable
strategies.
<
>
■
Combating mother-to-baby transmission of HIV
■
■
E
VERY DAY more than 2,000 children are
infected by the Aids virus (HIV). Without
preventive measures, 30 to 45% of babies
born to mothers carrying the virus are
infected. And yet, more than two thirds of
transmissions to the child can be prevented
by administering the long-established antiretroviral
drug AZT to the mother during the last months of
pregnancy and to the baby during its first weeks of
life. But the treatment is available to few women in
Africa, Latin America and Asia, the regions where
95% of infections in unweaned infants occur. The
critical state of the health systems and uncertain economic and hygiene conditions in these countries
make it difficult to apply the preventive measures and
treatments discovered and used in industrialised
countries.
international scientific consortium
It has already conducted two of the largest clinical trials so far
for prevention of mother-to-infant transmission of HIV: the
PHPT-1 trial assessed different durations of AZT treatment, while
PHPT-2 has demonstrated the benefit of adding to the standard
treatment a dose of another antiretroviral drug, nevirapine.
This brings the rate of infant infection down from 25% without treatment to about 2%. More than 4,500 HIV-positive
pregnant women have taken part in the trials. As the health
ministry is one of the partners in the consortium, the results
were immediately applied as part of national health policy. This
has had a direct impact on the number of infant AIDS cases,
which has considerably diminished in the last three years. ■
The IRD team is working mainly in Southeast Asia. In Thailand,
an original research system has been set up: the State has
asked various partner institutions to form a consortium. The
University of Chiang Mai represents all the Thai institutions
(the ministry of Health, the army and the Universities of
Chiang Mai, Mahidol and Khon Kaen) while the IRD in
Bangkok fulfils that role for the French and American partner
institutions.
In five years, the consortium has created a clinical research network involving 40 hospitals throughout the country, a co-ordination centre for clinical trials and an HIV virology and
immunology laboratory .
Contact: Marc Lallemant
marc@phpt.org
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
facilitating access to treatment
The aim of IRD research unit 054, whose work focuses
on mother and infant health, is to facilitate access to
preventive and curative AIDS treatments. The team
includes biologists, epidemiologists, clinicians and
public health practitioners working together to
assess methods for preventing the transmission of
the virus to the infant and treating those suffering
from the disease.
Dr. Vallop Thaineua, Permanent Secretary for Health,
Ministry of Health, Thailand
I
© IRD/S. Carrière
To improve existing strategies and devise new ones,
the IRD researchers are studying the factors that
determine an individual’s susceptibility to infection,
the progression of the disease and response to
treatment. By analysing what conditions are
required for incorporating these strategies into
existing health systems, the team can verify the
relevance of the methods proposed and adjust
them so that they are of most benefit to those
who need them.
In Thailand, preventive treatment against HIV
transmission from mother to baby is bearing fruit
22
23
N 1997, when I launched the pilot programme for prevention of mother-toinfant transmission of HIV in the north
of the country, Marc Lallemant’s team
were starting a large-scale clinical prevention trial to optimise the use of AZT .
Our two approaches complemented each
other very well, and we decided to collaborate.
Alongside the clinical trial, we set up the
intervention logistics and trained staff so
as to put the results into practice immediately. Since the start of our national
prevention programme in 1999, there
has been a spectacular drop in the number of children with AIDS . These research
results are also relevant for countries
that are even harder hit by the epidemic
but where such complex clinical and
operational research would not have
been possible. It also concerns the industrialised countries, where prevention can
still be improved. This close international
collaboration between researchers and
practitioners shows that the development is not a one-way process. ■
research
© IRD/V. Jamonneau
African human
trypanosomiasis:
a neglected disease
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Flobert Njiokou, lecturer at the University of Yaoundé I,
Cameroon
Screening for sleeping sickness in a Benin village
Like all vector-borne diseases, understanding epidemic situations is complicated by the fact that three agents are involved:
the parasite (the trypanosome), the vector (glossina, or tsetse
fly) and the host (humans and the animal reservoir of infection).
Climatic, environmental, economic, social and political factors
must also be taken into account in combating the disease.
genetic variability
IRD researches and their partners have developed an original
approach combining conventional field methods and molecular biology techniques. Molecular biology has proved particularly useful for detecting the parasite’s stage of development in
humans, information that is crucial for effective treatment.
Molecular markers have been developed to learn about genetic
variability in both trypanosomes and glossina. They have also
revealed the probable role of the animal reservoir in the maintenance and periodic resurgence of the disease. And they have
I
shown the existence of genetically distinct populations within
the same species of glossina, suggesting that there may be differences in vector capacity.
This last aspect is being studied in greater depth in France, at
the IRD-CIRAD insectarium in Baillarguet (CIRAD: French
Agricultural Research Centre for International Development).
The study of five species and sub-species of glossina has confirmed hypotheses that some of these have affinities with particular strains of trypanosome.
control rather than eradication
Researchers have been taking a global approach to the problem in two transmission areas studied in parallel, in Cameroon
and Côte d’Ivoire. Biological data and physical and human
geography information were gathered and superimposed in a
geographical information system: identified cases, genetics
and rate of infection in glossina, characterisation of the parasites in humans and in the animal reservoir for the biological
data; types of housing, places of activity, water sources, journeys, location of glossina traps for the geographical data. In
this way the researchers pin-pointed places where people were
exposed to the danger and it was possible to set up appropriate, targeted operations.
Many points have yet to be elucidated: sites and modes of
transmission, maintenance of the pool and periodic resurgence,
animals do harbour trypanosomes that
are potentially pathogenic for humans.
This work should lead to a better understanding of how the disease is maintained at endemic level in Cameroon.
The results have been presented orally
at international scientific conferences
and publication is now under way.
A “Young IRD partner team” has been
formed, giving us the opportunity to continue our collaboration with the IRD and
pursue our research into sleeping
sickness. ■
individual susceptibility, treatment failure. Further research is
essential if control of sleeping sickness (rather than eradication)
is to be achieved. ■
Contact: Gérard Cuny
Gerard.Cuny@mpl.ird.fr
© IRD/Ch. Bellec
A
FRICAN HUMAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS, or sleeping sickness, is
making a major come-back. In sub-Saharan Africa,
sixty million people are at risk from the disease. The
serious nature of this disease, its renewed upsurge, the
difficulty of administering treatment and the reticence
of the international community to provide long-term
assistance for monitoring in endemic situations, combine to
make sleeping sickness one of the world’s “orphan diseases”.
HAVE BEEN TAKING PART in research on
African human trypanosomiasis at
the Organization for the Control of
Endemic Diseases in Central Africa
(OCEAC), in collaboration with the IRD,
since 1996. The collaboration has
involved several training courses and
scientific exchanges, and has led to the
transfer to Yaoundé of numerous techniques. This has enabled OCEAC to conduct a number of projects, particularly
the “animal reservoir” work strand
which has recently revealed that wild
Tsetse fly trap
<
>
Ancient civilisations in tropical regions:
a history yet to be written
■
■
ANY TROPICAL REGIONS are regarded as
inhospitable areas whose natural conditions inevitably condemn them to
chronic underdevelopment. But longterm study of pre-European occupation of a number of tropical regions
suggest that this is not entirely true. The IRD’s
research unit 092 studies the socio-cultural developments of the last few thousand years in various parts
of the world, the processes that enabled complex
societies to emerge and the reasons for how they
developed and the ruptures they underwent. In
Ecuador, this research is conducted in collaboration
with the National Heritage Institute and the Central
Bank of Ecuador.
One study area lies on the coast in the far north of
the country, in the province of Esmeraldas. This is
mangrove country – reputed to be a difficult and
unrewarding land type. And yet in the first centuries
AD, this region was home to complex societies and
considerable cultural development spreading across
today’s border with Colombia. The research focuses
on agriculture and the socio-economic systems that
enabled the emergence of such societies in an environment that at first sight seems so inhospitable.
South of the Rio Santiago, prospecting has revealed
vestiges of huge field engineering systems with
drainage by canals and ridges to optimise faming
on this swampy land. Some of these ancient earthworks have been experimentally brought back
into cultivation to confirm the discoveries.
ancient settlements in the Amazon
The second study area in Ecuador is the
Amazonian foothills in the southern tip of the
25
Rio Chinchipe basin,
Ecuador
these receptacles in uncertain, the discovery attests to the
presence of ideological elements from the first great Andean
civilisation in a tropical environment where until now their
presence had been disputed. ■
Contacts: Jean Guffroy
Jean.Guffroy@orleans.ird.fr
Francisco Valdez
valdird@ecnet.ec
© IRD/J. Guffroy, L. Billault, F. Valdez
M
field engineering in mangrove areas
24
country, in Zamora-Chinchipe province. Data gathered since
1999 date the settlement of the first proto-Jivaro groups
towards the end of the first millennium AD. The extent of the
land development work and the density of the sites in the
upper Chinchipe river basin are evidence of considerable
development and relatively dense settlement in the last centuries before the Spanish conquest.
© IRD/F. Valdez
■
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Monica Bolaños, Ecuador
Bowl discovered in southern Ecuador, and reconstitution of one of its two figures by mirror effect
But above all, research has revealed evidence of development
at a much earlier date: the oldest vestiges recorded – monumental structures discovered at the La Florida site – apparently
date from about 2450 BC. At the same site, roadworks
brought to light some ten finely-polished stone receptacles.
One of the bowls is particularly remarkable for the iconographic quality of the engravings: zoomorphs (feline heads,
condors, a snake) make up the profiles of two monstrous figures. These representations are found in the Cupisnique and
Chavin traditions, which flourished towards the end of the late
second millennium BC several hundred kilometres from there,
on the coast and in the Peruvian Andes. Although the date of
National Institute of Cultural
Heritage
I
N 1999 WHEN THE PARTNERSHIP was
envisaged, we were already familiar
with the work of IRD researchers.
Our institute is very pleased with the
co-operation, which meets our need for
technical and scientific assistance.
These programmes also enable us to
work in regions that are still little
known, where our institute had not
hitherto had an effective presence. The
partnership has enabled the archaeology department, whose main activity
is salvage operations, to take part in
more academic work. The strategy
and logistics the IRD introduced have
brought us into multidisciplinary
research using high-technology analysis tools, for example to study preColumbian metallurgy. And finally,
thanks to our collaboration with the
IRD, we have organised two major conferences on current research problems. Our institute means to make a
bigger financial contribution to the
programmes under way, for the excavations scheduled for fall 2003 in the
Amazon; the importance of this work
merits the extra effort. ■
research
Little-known living
languages
© IRD/J.-F. Molez
T
HERE HAS BEEN LITTLE RESEARCH to date into the indigenous language systems of America, and some remain
completely unknown. The situation in French Guiana,
where much still remains to be learned, is one of
multilingualism and contacts between languages of
vastly different origins and types.
The research programme on languages in Guiana aims to study
these language systems and associated language practices,
taking their social context into account.
Under the programme in 2002, grammars were produced for
two languages: palikur, an Amerindian language, and nenge,
a Creole-Marron language. In addition to that tangible outcome, the research into Amazonian languages (which display
some unusual morpho-syntactical features) and Creole languages has produced interesting data for a general theory of
language which challenges some dominant models.
The Wâyapi are one of French Guiana’s many Amerindian ethnic groups
applications for society
The research programme also has applications for teaching in
multilingual environments, which are being developed with
partner education facilities (teacher training college, AntillesGuyane University) and the education authority in Guiana. An
education research team was set up for this purpose.
Hmong assistant teachers employed by the education authority, whose role is to introduce their native languages into local
schools. Researchers from CELIA also assist Amerindian and
Businenge associations with language promotion (writers’
workshops, publications in the languages, etc.). ■
Demand in relation to these languages is growing and increasingly varied. CELIA takes part in such activities as training
bilingual cultural mediators – Amerindian, Businenge and
Contact: Jon Landaburu
jlandabu@vjf.cnrs.fr
A PARTNER ’ S VIEWPOINT
Jean-Paul Fereira, bilingual cultural mediator, Working Group on Kali’na Language and Culture
Awala-Yalimapo, Guiana
OR ALMOST TEN YEARS NOW, the CELIA team
has worked closely with associations
and members of the community on
Kali’na culture and language.
This co-operation has taken the form of training sessions and workshops, which in 1997
led to a proposed transcription for the Kali’na
F
language, validated officially by the customary chieftains in the different areas where the
Kali’na community lives. Five years ago, as
part of a programme to introduce the regional
languages and cultures of Guiana jointly run
by the Guiana education authority and CELIA,
an experiment to introduce Kali’na language
(GTLCK),
and culture was launched in a school in
Awala-Yalimapo municipality.
In my view, this fruitful co-operation with
CELIA must continue into the long term so that
the research can generate more tangible outcomes and immediate applications for the
benefit of the communities concerned. ■
© IRD/Ch. Taverne
The programme is run by the Centre for Studies of Indigenous
Languages of America (CELIA), a joint research unit made up of
researchers from the CNRS, the IRD, Paris VII University and the
French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO).
Kali’na language workshop
at the IRD centre in Cayenne
<
>
Fruitful
■
Fruitful collaboration
■
Transition and consolidation best describe 2002
for the Expertise and
Consulting department
(DEV, département expertise et valorisation).
The department is now
engaged in strategic thinking about IRD policy
on knowledge transfer
and consulting.
D
uring the year, the department continued to fulfil its usual missions. On
the industrial property front, the
patent portfolio was monitored more
pro-actively, with a focus on particular patent families. As part of this
new approach, 2,000 laboratory notebooks
were distributed to meet the needs of scientific
staff for good practice and legal evidence of priority. The consultancy procedure is now well
established and is producing some valuable
partnerships. Co-operative agreements with the
private sector were signed, in specialities such
as cosmetics and mining. The quality procedure
initiated in 2001 is now used throughout the
IRD, including the definition of priorities and a
multi-year scalability plan. The first laboratory
received its ISO 9002 quality certification. Four
new collegial expertise reviews were launched.
seeding innovation: aid for business
start-ups
In 2002, IRD staff submitted three applications
to the French research ministry’s national competition for innovative technology enterprises.
Jean Waikedre’s project, selected by the
national jury, is to produce natural essences in
Loyalty Islands province, New Caledonia; it has
been accepted by a public incubator in mainland France, Ile-de-France Innovation. Meanwhile Sylvain Gilles’s project for a tropical fishfarming design engineering office has been
accepted by Languedoc Roussillon Incubateur.
With support from Anvar, the French innovation agency, these two innovative enterprise
creation projects are benefiting from a range of
26
27
partnerships: incubators, researchers and engineers from other establishments, and local
partners in New Caledonia (Loyalty Islands
province) and Senegal (Ministry of Agriculture
and Fisheries).
With support from the IRD, Andilab in Bolivia
produces Chagas disease diagnosis kits. It has
received the special prize from the jury of the
Altran Foundation for technical innovation.
Born of a French-Bolivian project, this start-up is
now operating with scientists from the La Paz
pharmacy faculty.
© IRD/M.-N. Favier
■
research quality
The research quality approach was initiated by
the French ministry of research and encouraged
by the standards authority Afnor. Its aim is to
raise scientists’ credibility and reputation with
the users of research and improve the organisation of scientific work, optimising resources to
meet the missions and objectives assigned to it.
The new approach operates by encouragement
and participation; it involves training and support for teams, help in certifying and standardising structures, and awareness campaigns
among staff. The research quality approach is
also an official part of the IRD’s modernisation
and administrative simplification plan. In
Montpellier, the pest control laboratory of the
“Characterisation and control of vector populations” research unit, a member of the WHO network, has received ISO 9002 quality certification.
laboratory notebooks
The laboratory notebook is legally valid evidence
for earliest personal ownership of intellectual
The Andilab laboratory receives
an Altran innovation award
property in France, and for date of invention in
the United States (since 1996, whatever the language and location). It proves that the three
defining features of an invention are all present:
- date of conception of the invention (definition
of the technical problem and specific means of
solving it);
- reduction to practice of the invention (transition from intellectual conception to the practical
phase of inventive activity);
- diligence in achieving reduction to practice
(the inventor’s continuous intention to complete the inventive activity).
The notebook is also a log ensuring traceability
of research, and therefore a useful component
of a quality approach. As an example of good
laboratory practice, it is evidence of the quality
of the scientific work done. The notebook’s legal
expertise
collaboration
value depends on the care with which it is kept.
Each numbered page must contain a certain
amount of information and the notebook must
be kept by a single researcher according to
quite precise rules. The laboratory notebook
remains the property of the IRD; it must be
archived in the unit for which the researcher
works, although its author may make a copy of
it at any time.
concerned. In 2002, the IRD set up a committee
to monitor this work. Four expertise reviews
were launched: scientific diasporas from countries of the South and the benefit these countries could draw from them; optimisation of
dengue fever control in French Guiana and the
French Antilles; prospects for organic farming
in Martinique; and trachoma control strategies
in West Africa. The groups of experts studying
the first two completed their work at the end
of the year. ■
valid patent families. These new operations have
not changed the structure of the system, which
mainly involves life sciences and their applications to health, cosmetics and agro-industry.
The main applications this year were four new
research agreements, a marketing licence and
five amendments to licensing and know-how
contracts.
collegial expertise reviews
patents
With five new patents filed – three of them
wholly owned by the IRD – 2002 may be seen as
a fairly good year. Closer management of the
IRD’s patent portfolio has focused on 38 currently
L
Fish farm in
New Caledonia
LEISHMANIASIS :
FIRST DOG VACCINE
EISHMANIASIS is one of the diseases largely
ignored by countries in the North. However, it
affects 15 million people, 90% of them in
developing countries. Since the dog population is the main reservoir for the disease, the IRD and
its partner Bio Véto Tests (European leader in canine
leishmaniasis screening) ran trials of dog vaccination before testing humans. The trials received funding from the French innovation agency, Anvar. They
were directed by Jean-Loup Lemesre of the “Trypanosome pathogenics” unit, in co-operation with
the Lyon National Veterinary School and a network of
veterinary practitioners in the main endemic areas of
southern France. After the highly encouraging results
of the first two clinical phases, the third stage of
the study, assessing the efficacy of the trial vaccine
in endemic areas, was carried out on a very large
scale, with monitoring of clinical, biological,
immunological and parasitological parameters over
two years, covering two disease transmission cycles.
The results were very positive, and an application
has been filed for a veterinary marketing licence;
this is expected to be granted by the end of 2004.
At the same time, IRD scientists have begun research
on the human application of the vaccine.
Contact: Jean-Loup Lemesre
jean-loup.lemesre@mpl.ird.fr
© IRD/C. Lissalde
PATENT LICENCES :
AN EXAMPLE
IRD collegial expertise reports provide decisionmakers with a scientific analysis of the state of
knowledge on a given subject that has become a
public policy issue. The comprehensive conclusions of these analyses cover all the scientific fields
<
>
Preparing for
■
Preparing for the future – together
■
■
Local research teams
well integrated into the
international scientific
community are essential
for the development of
Southern countries.
The competencies developed in this way give
these countries the expert-
B
ESIDES ITS RESEARCH and consultancy
missions, the IRD places great importance on the long-term development
of research capability in Southern
research communities. The IRD’s
Support and Training department
identifies local potential and the conditions for
competencies to emerge and stabilise, defines
suitable forms of support and assists the IRD
research teams in this partnership process.
The department’s activities stem from two main
principles:
need for decision-making
- put the team rather than the individual at the
centre of the system, because it assembles competencies and ensures their continuity;
on vital issues.
- give the teams responsibility, allowing them to
ise and capacities they
THE CORUS
PROGRAMME :
T
CO - OPERATION FOR SCIENTIFIC
AND ACADEMIC RESEARCH
HE FOREIGN MINISTRY’S Scientific Academic and Research Division has
made the IRD responsible for running the CORUS programme’s executive secretariat. This programme targets
the countries in France’s “priority solidarity
zone”*, its aim being to promote the emergence of centres of scientific excellence
possessing research and consulting capabilities that are useful for development.
The Support and Training department
organised a call for proposals in which
each project must involve at least one team
from the South and one from the North, and
also include a strong training component.
The operation has been a great success:
193 applications came in from more than
thirty countries, and 51 projects were
selected.
* The “priority solidarity zone” includes 53 countries. The
list can be found on the French foreign ministry’s website: www.cooperation.gouv.fr/solidarité/fsp/zone.html
become independent and concentrate on their
own themes rather than changing to a new subject on each international call for proposals.
Research quality is something that is built up over
time, as is the researchers’ capacity to provide
consulting services for development purposes.
Southern countries’ needs with regard to scientific partnerships vary, so IRD support takes a variety of forms: support for teams, individual support with various financing mechanisms, and
institutional support, which means supporting
research within Southern scientific structures and
assisting with training, applications and dissemination of results. As the team is at the centre of
our approach, individual and institutional support
are provided according to the potential for local
application in a group or education stream.
S UPPORT
AND TRAINING
29
promoting the work of young
Southern PhDs
Scientific competency cannot be fully utilised
unless it is recognised. Aware that the work of
Southern researchers often does not find sufficient outlets for promotion and application, the
Support and Training department has introduced a new subsidy that enables young PhDs
who have received a fellowship from the
department to promote their work by delivering
papers at conferences or having their theses
translated or re-written for publication.
FIGURES FOR
2002
Number of individual support grants
Doctoral thesis
In-service training
Scientific exchange
323
181
47
95
Support for teams (number of operations)
129
36
AIRE développement
Foreign Research Investment Agency (c. 27,000 € per team per year)
52
Programme financed by the French foreign ministry under IRD executive secretariat (c.19,000 € /per team per year)
Young IRD partner team (c. 20,000 € /per team per year)
13
Call for applications to “social sciences in Africa”
28
Programme financed by the French foreign ministry, run by CODESRIA and the IRD (c.27,000 € /per team per year)
CORUS
Institutional support (160,000 € in 2002)
Training courses
Teams and centres
Seminars and worshops
28
This system follows clearly defined, transparent
procedures based mainly on calls for proposals,
evaluation and rigorous monitoring.
15
2
4
9
training
the future
the “Young IRD partner teams”
In 2002 a new form of support for research
teams was launched on an experimental basis:
the “jeunes équipes associées IRD”. Scientific
partnership with an IRD research unit helps to
strengthen local competencies, provided it is so
designed as to increase Southern researchers’
independence. Taking part in a joint research
programme enables young scientists to take a
comparative approach, access new methods
and technologies and build up experience
through a funded programme whose results are
then promoted internationally.
THE “MICROBIAL SYMBIOSIS”
YOUNG PARTNER TEAM
IN DAKAR, SENEGAL
T
“B ENEFITS
© IRD/A. Rival
The call for young partner team proposals for
two- or three-year contracts has been very well
received by the Institute’s partners and research
units. Twenty-five applications were received:
nineteen from sub-Saharan Africa, two from
the Maghreb, three from Latin America and one
from Vietnam. The evaluation committee
approved thirteen.
Laboratory training
ON BOTH SIDES ”
The “microbial symbiosis” team in Dakar is partnered with the IRD’s “tropical and Mediterranean symbioses” research unit.
Unit head Bernard Dreyfus reports:
T
HE PARTNERSHIP with the young Dakar team is
valuable from several standpoints. It brings
together partners from several Senegalese
institutions around a joint scientific project
that is validated by rigorous assessment. This way we
are working with a sound and sufficiently large scientific team. The partnership has greatly helped bilateral
exchanges among researchers, resulting in highquality joint publications.
For the Senegalese institutions, Dakar University particularly, the team provides a hard core that can
accommodate young lecturer-researchers under
excellent scientific conditions – an attractive opening
for students trained abroad. This has already led to
several recruitments, helping to limit the brain drain.
Collaboration with the Dakar team has also enabled
our unit to submit a project to the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, and several to the European
Union. So there are clear benefits on both sides.
Lastly, the “young IRD partner teams” are a way of
ensuring that research for development continues.
We have all too often seen African partner laboratories collapse because they had not sufficiently united
their researchers as a team or prepared for taking
over the work. This kind of partnership is equally
essential for IRD teams, who need strong scientific
partners. ■
HE FIVE RESEARCHERS in this team
are from the plant biology laboratory at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar and the Senegalese Agricultural Research Institute.
Their programme concerns rhizobia and
the mycorrhiza of five species of legume.
It covers isolation, molecular characterisation, production of inocula and
inoculation in the field, with isotopic
measurement of nitrogen-fixing activity.
The team is now a competency hub
that should make a name for itself at
country and regional level. Its formation
meets the Senegalese government’s
desire to strengthen the human and
financial resources of the national food
and agriculture research system, fostering synergy between the country’s
various scientific institutions and partners. The team also has sufficient human
resources to supervise students, helping to meet the university’s plant biology training needs.
<
>
Preparing for
■
■
■
H ELPING S OUTHERN
RESEARCHERS BREAK OUT OF SCIENTIFIC ISOLATION
Assistant professor Khadija Lamrani is a researcher in a “young IRD partner team” at the Hassan II Institute of Agronomy and
Veterinary Medicine in Rabat, Morocco. She received an in-service training fellowship.
W
HEN I WAS MADE HEAD of the mycology laboratory in the biotechnology and food
microbiology department at the Hassan II
Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary
Medicine, I was the only researcher in the institute
working on filamentous fungi and their toxins and I
had no specific project.
I was approached by Prof. Ismaili-Alaoui, who is working at the Institute on value-added use of agricultural
by-products: he was looking for a mycology specialist
for a research programme on essential oils. Thanks to
joint Franco-Moroccan funding, I spent some time at
the Mycology and Fermentation in Solid Substrates
laboratory in Marseille, where Prof. Ismaili-Alaoui is
collaborating with IRD research unit 119.
I decided to extend my capacities by taking an advanced
doctorate based on that work. I worked mainly with
Dr. Roussos at the IRD, with whom I reoriented my
thesis to work on value-added use of olive by-products. I joined the research project being jointly conducted by the IRD unit and Prof. Ismaili-Alaoui’s team.
It was in that context that I was granted an IRD
in-service training fellowship which enabled me to
spend further spells working at the Marseille laboratory, learning new techniques and building up a collection of filamentous fungi of interest for bioconverting farm and food industry by-products.
With these encouraging results we obtained FrancoMoroccan funding for three years and earned the
title of “Young IRD partner team”. So now, as well as
advancing my competencies, I’m no longer working
alone: I’m working as a member of a fully-fledged
research team. ■
EXAMPLE :
A
© IRD/S. Roussos
31
The Support and Training department
makes every effort to develop synergy
with other scientific co-operation actors
and improve co-ordination between the
different forms of research support provided by France, Europe and international
bodies. It organises or takes part in projects to support scientific communities in
the South, mobilising partners in North
and South alike.
The IRD’s input in this connection cannot
be only financial: it also invests its capacities for research, organisation, facilitation,
monitoring and evaluation.
WORKSHOP IN BUÉA , CAMEROON ,
ON SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT IN WEST AFRICA
of the International Foundation for Science, a workshop on purchasing, use and maintenance of scientific
equipment in West Africa was held in Buéa,
Cameroon, in November 2002.
The workshop was well attended, with researchers,
technicians, engineers, suppliers, managers of
Southern institutions and scientific co-operation
agencies. The IRD had been asked to take part
because of its experience in equipment maintenance
and its competence in scientific capacity building for
30
partnership complementarity
T THE INITIATIVE
Olive press in a maasra,
traditional Moroccan
oil mill
Southern countries. The discussions laid down the
conditions for national and regional co-ordination of
equipment purchasing and maintenance initiatives,
based on broad consultation among the actors. Only
a coherent, large-scale policy can improve the scientific equipment at the disposal of Southern
researchers and optimise its use: it will mean pooling
resources, developing regional-level training, rigorously cataloguing resources and competencies, etc.
To succeed, Northern partners must avoid acting on
a case-by-case basis and take a concerted approach.
training
the future
evaluation: a core component
of scientific partnership
Working effectively to strengthen Southern
scientific communities implies being able to
clearly identify the competencies available and
the coherence of the projects proposed.
Rigorous procedures for ex ante and ex post
evaluation, and sometimes interim assessments, are an absolute necessity. For this work
the department calls on various evaluation
committees and a network of outside experts.
While the criteria of a project’s relevance and
coherence are the sine qua non, it is also
essential that there should be potential spinoff for the local scientific environment. For
individual support, that spin-off must meet a
need of the structure that person is working
for or may work for in future. Similarly, team
support is granted only if there are clear possibilities for integration into the local research
environment: providing training for the young,
Figure 1
local scientific collaboration, a project that
matches the local institution’s scientific programming, etc. ■
JURY
DAY IN THE
IRD economist
EVALUATION CRITERIA
FOR “ YOUNG IRD PARTNER
TEAMS ”
• The team itself: the quality of team leader and
members; consistency between the team’s
composition and its project; experience;
members’ participation in networks;
• the intrinsic quality of the scientific programme;
• prospects for the young team’s development
once the partnership has ended;
• the quality of the partnership with the IRD unit:
genuine partnership; complementary competencies; capacity to supervise young
researchers and doctoral students.
Breakdown of individual support grants in 2002
Figure 2
SUPPORT
AND
Catherine Aubertin is
a member of the department’s selection
committee
B
EFORE the jury day itself, we study the applications – a big task because there are so
many of them. As the requirements applicants have to meet are increasingly stringent, the projects submitted are better and better
designed, but the justifications put forward are often
inflated and we have to sort the excellent from the
less good.
Then come the meetings – absolute marathons, but
the discussions are cool and dispassionate. The
ground rules are clear and it’s rare for rapporteurs to
disagree. Above all, they respect the applicants
because they have studied the project.
Geographical breakdown of individual support in 2002
21
47
Asia
110
In-service training
Western Africa
95
Short scientific
exchange
181
Doctoral
Thesis
85
Latin America
and Caribbean
49
37
Maghreb
and Middle East
Central Africa
21
Eastern Africa and
Indian Ocean
TRAINING
DEPARTMENT
With a promising candidate whose application
doesn’t meet the criteria, we propose improvements
for a new application. Criticism is reserved for the
IRD units presenting the applications: we sometimes
spot over-indulgence, a need for additional staff,
lack of supervision. In fact, beyond the scientific
project itself, we assess our team’s capacity to
supervise the students and the reality of our cooperation with the Southern researchers concerned.
So examining these applications also means examining how the Institute is functioning.
At the same time the rapporteurs inform us about
trends in their disciplines, their knowledge of the
Southern teams and the IRD, and their experience in
the field. That sparks off some lively debates and
valuable exchanges of information – a significant
reward for the jury members. ■
<
>
scientific
■
Scientific information and science in society
■
■
The IRD has to provide its
researchers with highquality scientific information, increase the visibility
and readability of its work
for the national and international public and foster
debate between science
and society. These are the
missions of the Information and Communication
enhancing visibility
The main vehicle for publicising the institute’s
work is the periodical Sciences au Sud, which
has a print run of 15,000 and is distributed in
115 countries; it includes a summary supplement in English. In 2002 a special issue on
“Development and Environment” was widely
disseminated at the Johannesburg summit,
while special features on tropical forests, soil
science and integrated crop management were
issued for events organised by the Institute.
Raising media awareness of tropical research
issues through press releases (some thirty in
2002) and scientific newssheets (about twenty)
was represented at major events such as the
Johannesburg summit on sustainable development. Our twelve young peoples’ science clubs
(called “Jeunes, Recherche pour le développement”), are another way to raise public awareness of science and development issues. The
club in Quito, for example, studied potato
pests, while in Madagascar a hill was replanted
with endemic tree species.
produced more than 1,250 reports in the press
and on radio and TV. The Institute’s Website
(www.ird.fr) was refurbished and is now a
showcase presenting information about the
Institute in a lively way, hosting the sites of our
research units and centres abroad (we also provide them with advice for their websites).
To give science a higher public profile, the IRD is
increasingly present in public debate. Our
researchers gave more than a hundred lectures,
particularly at the Cité des Sciences et de
l’Industrie in Paris, during the national Science
Festival and in countries where the Institute has
a duty to report to its partners. In 2002 the IRD
giving researchers access
to scientific information
Useful and accessible scientific information and
dissemination of results are both essential for the
research process. The IRD must also help Southern science communities break out of their isolation and enable Southern partners to publish
their results. In 2002 we extended our database
offering. All IRD researchers now have access
online to Current Contents, CAB, Georef and
the Web of Science portal. We also extended
subscriptions to electronic journals and now
have access to more than 1,400 journals.
department.
© IRD/A. Brauman
disseminating results
Science morning in Dakar, run by students at Cheikh Anta Diop University
32
33
Continued exploitation of information in
unabridged form now provides access to over
60% of the abundant Orstom-IRD document
base under the Infothèque project, which also
includes 2,500 maps produced by the IRD and
currently being made available online.
In terms of book publishing, 27 new titles
joined a catalogue of 400 books in print. The
policy of subsidising publishing to help disseminate findings in counties where the IRD is working was strengthened, and sales improved.
information
<
information
I
BY IRD RESEARCHERS CITED IN THE
2002, 523 IRD publications in the natural sciences and life sciences were
listed in the Science Citation Index, and 609 in Institute of Scientific Information
(ISI) databases as a whole. For 2001 those figures were 518 and 595 respectively. A bibliometric study based on the SCI data confirms the trend observed
last year: an increasing number of publications, an increasing number of publications per head of research staff, and more collaborative publications.
In 2001-2002, the number of SCI publications per researcher was 0.86 (this figure
is close to 1 for publications listed in the ISI databases altogether). The “expected”
visibility estimated from journal impact factors is 2.2.
The proportion of publications jointly signed with Southern teams was 40% in
2001-2002, a significant increase from 30% in 1989-1991 and 33% in 1995-1997.
N
The Cartography Laboratory, the IRD’s map
resource centre, published a morphopedological map of the Republic of Guinea and an original collection of some fifty maps on the theme
of populations and sustainable development
(1950-2050); these too are available on the
Web. Now under way is a programme to catalogue and capitalise on aerial photographs of
Togo and Senegal.
Ten new titles were added to our audiovisual
output. Television broadcasts of IRD productions
such as the film Arbres increased public awareness of our work. Thirty-three films were selected
for festivals, and six won prizes.
S CIENCE C ITATION I NDEX ( SCI *)
The rate of collaboration with European researchers was 20% (up from 11% in
1989-1991 and 16% in 1995-1997). The rate of international collaboration was
62% (up from 47% in 1989-1991 and 56% in 1995-1997).
IRD researchers’ publications in humanities and social
sciences
Though not yet complete, the 2001-2002 data for humanities and social sciences
indicate publication of 64 books, 224 parts of books or papers published in conference proceedings, and more than 50 articles in journals analysed by Current
Contents and International Bibliography of Social Sciences.
* The calculations are based on the number of researchers working in the disciplines covered by the
SCI; they therefore exclude the social sciences.
The Indigo photo library, with more than
20,000 photos archived and captioned, can
now be consulted online at www.ird.fr/indigo.
developing a sense of belonging
As regards communication within the IRD, in
February 2002 the department launched an inhouse electronic newsletter, Recto-verso. We
also organised film screenings and debates at
the Paris head offices, Nouméa, Bondy and
other centres, to help develop a sense of
belonging and a more thorough knowledge of
the Institute. ■
In 2002 we provided institutional support for
some thirty symposia.
Science event in a
Bangkok school
© IRD/Ch. Hartmann
P UBLICATIONS