Training,
sharing,
finding
applications
26
27
• Strengthening
• Finding
applications
• Working
• Sharing
Southern countries’ research capacities
for sustainable development
information and knowledge
• Promoting
a research ethic for the South
Guinea : satellite image
Annual report 2005
Strengthening Southern
countries’ research capacities
Among the imperatives on which IRD support is based are high quality in research projects
and lasting partnerships. Support is usually provided through joint actions with other
scientific cooperation organisations.
The IRD offers the following types of support to promote research capacity in the South:
Support for teams
The IRD helps newly-formed research teams in the South who are working on developmentrelated issues to get established, giving them financial support for three years and allocating
an IRD research unit to act as incubator. So far 26 such Jeunes équipes associées IRD (JEAI)
have received the Institute’s support.
The IRD also runs the executive secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ CORUS
programme. The purpose of CORUS is to promote scientific partnerships between French
universities and research institutions and those in France's "priority solidarity zone”.
Microtrop: strengthening microbiology competencies
One of the original features of the IRD’s missions compared to other French research bodies is that
it is committed to strengthening scientific capacity in the tropical countries it works with. Having
stable, self-managing scientific communities producing knowledge and building their own
consulting capabilities is of great importance for Southern countries and their development.
The IRD has several missions in this regard. One is to promote the formation of research teams in
the South and consolidate their competencies for the long term. One is to foster these teams’ selfmanagement capability and their integration in the international scientific community. The third is
to train people in research methods and such skills as project management, fund-raising, organising
scientific meetings and promoting and disseminating results. This work must take account of each
country’s particular needs and the local situations in which researchers have to work. While the
least developed countries need strong, overall support to structure and strengthen their research
potential, the more advanced countries are seeking to establish competency hubs in particular
fields and diversify their scientific partnerships.
28
The Microtrop microbiology summer school was held at the Dakar
centre on 28-30 May. Organised by the IRD, Cheikh Anta Diop
University in Dakar and the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural
Research, this original programme is intended to strengthen
Southern communities’ capacities for diagnostic analysis and intervention in microbial ecology, an essential field for understanding
the full complexity of ecological issues in tropical environments.
As well as training recently-qualified researchers, Microtrop aimed
at setting up a microbial ecology information and research network
of researchers in Southern and Northern countries. The network is
currently being organised by research unit UR 179 (SeqBio).
Microtrop is more than just a summer school. It is a test laboratory
for consolidating training courses and facilitating the network.
29
Support for individuals
Support and training:
In 2005 the IRD had a portfolio of:
• 150 three-year doctoral thesis grants. These are intended to enable young Southern researchers
to obtain their initial training. The grantees are integrated in and supervised by IRD research teams.
• 5 two-year postdoctoral grants enabling newly qualified PhDs to continue research and help them
integrate into Southern research teams. These grants are jointly financed by the IRD and the
Southern host institution.
• 42 twelve-month in-service training grants to encourage in-service training or to help researchers,
engineers and technicians upgrade their careers through partnerships with the IRD.
• 53 twelve-month short-term scientific exchange fellowships, designed to encourage Southern
researchers' mobility through partnerships with the IRD.
Support for institutional projects
The IRD ran 19 operations in support of institutional projects. For this type of support the Institute takes
a case by case approach, offering advice, mediation and scientific support to create or strengthen
structured projects with a partner institution or to help partners wishing to develop a competency they
lack. For example, the IRD helps design teaching courses in liaison with local teams and Northern
universities, supports summer schools (see box, Microtrop) and helps establish networks.
Number of individual support grants
2o5
Thesis grants
In-service training
Scientific exchanges
Postdoctoral grants
105
42
53
5
Support for teams (operations)
125
New IRD partner teams (JEAIs)
CORUS-Campus
AIRE Développement
26
79
20
Support for institutional projects:
192,000 euros, 19 operations
Individual support grants by research programme
Programme 1
Natural hazards,
climate and
non-renewable
resources
Contact: dsf@paris.ird.fr
5%
Grants to individuals, by region, 2005
Asia: 8
Latin America and Caribbean: 71
Maghreb and Middle East: 18
East Africa and Indian Ocean: 13
Central Africa: 20
West Africa: 75
New IRD partner teams (JEAIs) by topic and region
Natural hazards, climate and non-renewable resources: 3 (3 LA)
Sustainable management of Southern ecosystems: 5 (4M, 2SA)
Continental and coastal waters: 2 (1LA, 1SA)
Food security in the South: 3 (3SA)
Public health, health policy: 6 (3LA, 3SA)
Globalisation and development: 6 (2LA, 3SA, 1M)
Sub-Saharan Africa (SA): 12 Maghreb (M): 5 Latin America (LA): 9
Programme 6
24%
19%
Globalisation and
development
Programme 5
Programme 2
Sustainable
management
of Southern
ecosystems
15%
20%
Public health and
health policy
Programme 3
Continental and
coastal waters
17%
Programme 4
Food security
in the South
Annual report 2005
Finding applications
The IRD continued to accomplish its missions on the applications side. These are: finding economic
applications, company formation, consulting, expert group reviews and quality management. A
network of expertise and applications correspondents was formed to expand the Institute’s
capability and to help forge closer ties with others involved in research.
Economic applications
The IRD won two “Emergence and maturation of biotechnology projects” contracts from the
National Research Agency, for work on leishmaniasis. These contracts, which were introduced for
the first time in 2005, are intended for projects with a high potential for economic application.
With 50 patents do far, the IRD is constantly adding to the list. Nine new patent applications were
filed in 2005, including six jointly owned with other public-sector research bodies or industrial
firms. Growth was fastest in biotechnology, health and agronomy.
There is also a growing demand for contracts in the environmental protection field.
Industrial liaisons established in the past few years were consolidated. In Mexico, the consortium
formed by CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre), the IRD, Pioneer HilBred, Limagrain and Syngenta to work on maize apomixis has been extended for five years. The
agreement between the IRD and biotechnology firm Proteus to develop industrial products from
micro-organisms, mainly micro-organisms found in extreme environments, has also been extended.
Consulting and innovation seeding
The IRD assists researchers who want to form a company to exploit their research results. IRD staff
who undertake consulting work, whether for institutions or the private sector, are given help on
contractual aspects.
Quality management
The IRD continues to apply quality management in its laboratories, continuously improving
the traceability and reliability of its results and improving the laboratories’ internal
organisation. A university diploma in “research laboratory quality management” was set up
in collaboration with the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, and a series of
introductory training sessions on quality was designed. To guide its quality management
approach, the IRD has adopted the ISO 9001 standard; applying this standard, staff share an
organisational culture that is well suited to research in North and South, on all continents.
The IRD assists its laboratories when they undertake the ISO 9001 certification process, as a
growing number of them are doing.
The Montpellier centre in France organised its third summer school on “Quality in the
Languedoc-Roussillon region” and formed a local Quality group.
Expert group reviews
Four expert group reviews have been conducted so far, to provide policy makers with analyses
of existing scientific knowledge on an issue with major implications for public policy:
• Invasive species in the New Caledonia archipelago: a major environmental and economic
hazard, sponsored by New Caledonia’s three Province authorities
• Managing the resources of the Niger River, conducted mainly at the request of the Rural
Economics Institute of Mali and the World Conservation Union (IUCN)
• Organic agriculture in Martinique, sponsored by the Martinique regional authority
• Trachoma control in Sub-Saharan Africa is in process of publication
Contact: dev@paris.ird.fr
Applications correspondents
Two applications correspondents, in Dakar and Montpellier, help and advise staff at IRD centres in all
aspects of promoting and exploiting research results: intellectual property rights (patents, copyright,
plant breeders’ rights), economic exploitation (licence contracts, looking for partners, business seeding)
and quality management (ISO 9001 certification projects for laboratories, platforms or services).
30
31
Working for sustainable
development
By the very nature of its mission, the IRD’s work is
central to sustainable development. By producing
knowledge in partnership with scientists in the South,
the Institute addresses major problems confronting these
countries and examines them as part of the
environmental, economic, social and cultural challenges
of development. In 2005 the IRD appointed a sustainable
development adviser to refine its research approach to
sustainable development. This approach incorporates
several imperatives: partnership-based conception of
projects, a long-term perspective taking the
environmental aspect into account, and comprehensive,
integrated action. The IRD’s commitment is also
reflected in its contribution to national and international
discussions to define what shape sustainable
development should take.
Action research: three examples
Towards sustainable development in Laos
In Northern Laos, deforestation, shorter fallow periods and the gradual abandonment of rain-fed rice
farming have led to soil erosion, which is now a serious problem. Most forest conservation and land
reforestation policies have proven incompatible with poverty reduction among the highland
populations. The IRD has been working with the National Agricultural and Forestry Institute and the
International Water Management Institute on this problem. This involves working with farmers to
try out food production systems that will improve their incomes but also respect the environment;
strengthening the Laotian partners’ research capacity though region-wide training workshops and
daily collaboration in field and laboratory; and training Laotian students, who work in pairs with
European students.
Towards sustainable city management in Addis-Ababa
Addis-Ababa, capital of Ethiopia with a population of 3 million, has all the usual economic
difficulties and lack of infrastructure of a developing country’s metro area. Forty per cent of
the population is under-employed, 50% earn less than 40 € a month, only 60% have direct
connection to the water mains and only 3.7% to the sewer system. IRD researchers, in
partnership with Ethiopian research bodies and French universities, are currently making a
diagnostic analysis of the urban environment. The aim is to improve understanding of how
the city functions, assess its viability and vulnerability, define priorities and make
recommendations for city management with a view to sustainable urban development.
Another aspect of the project involves providing the City Government with much-needed
information and teaching students at the Ethiopian Civil Service College town planning
department.
Bolivia: sustainable income from biodiversity
Among the vast floristic diversity Bolivia enjoys are many plants such as romillero, llave t’ika
and muña negra that are traditionally used for medical or religious purposes, as biocides or for
their aromatic properties. How can this biological diversity best be used for the benefit of rural
communities? With the IRD’s support, Bolivian and French partners, NGOs, farmers and
indigenous communities have joined forces in the Biodesa project, led by the Agro-industrial
Technology Centre at the University of Cochabamba. The aim of the project is to improve
knowledge of Bolivia’s biodiversity by means of inventories, plant collections and analysis of
plants’ biological properties. Once plants with potential for industry have been selected, farmers’
groups distil the essential oils themselves. Plant collecting is organised in a sustainable way and
marketing channels are organised to bring in additional income for local farmers and to fund
efforts to halt the environmental degradation.
Contact: Catherine Aubertin - catherine.aubertin@orleans.ird.fr
Annual report 2005
Sharing information
and knowledge
The IRD’s information and
knowledge sharing missions are to
ensure a high profile for the
Institution and its scientists, to
disseminate
information
to
scientists and professionals, and to
improve relations between science
and society.
The IRD’s external visibility
increased in 2005 through press
reports (1700 of them), its
periodical Sciences au Sud which
is circulated in 120 countries,
scientific news sheets, the reach of
its website, which receives an
ever-growing number of hits,
especially the short Canal IRD
videos. The Indigo image base,
which has a stock of nearly 32,000
numbered
and
documented
pictures, is increasingly widely
used now that it can be accessed
on the Internet. Regular television
appearances enable the institute
to promote its results among the
general public.
To provide effective support for scientists, the IRD subscribes to an ever-increasing number of online science information services, with more subscriptions in its centres outside France, and also
supplies access to the impact factors of the main scientific journals. Publications by the
Institute’s researchers were systematically monitored in 2005 - a first step towards setting up
bibliometric analysis tools and indicators.
32
A new documentation system was deployed in 13 IRD documentation centres, giving
widespread access to the researchers’ 65,000 publications (65% of which are available in
electronic form) and the documentary resources the Institute has been amassing for the
past 60 years, particularly in its documentation centres in the tropical zone.
Some fifty books and atlases were published in 2005, including Représenter la nature?
ONG et biodiversité, the expert group review Organic agriculture in Martinique (in English
and French) and Le territoire est mort, vive les territoires. To disseminate results in the
language of the partner country, preference was given to co-publication and delegated
publishing in Southern countries. Synthesis reports of symposia and seminars were
published or made available on-line for easier access.
33
the help of the French Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, mobile exhibitions travelled around
France and some thirty other countries. A
travelling exhibition entitled Sciences au
Sud, about French research in Southern
countries, was on show in the Indian Ocean
region, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned the
Institute to implement a programme to
promote scientific and technical culture in ten countries in France’s priority solidarity zone,
mostly in Africa, at a cost of € 2.8 M. Nearly fifty initiatives received financial and technical
support, based on competitive bidding.
On the cartography side, apart from training and actions in support of Southern partner research
teams, output was enriched with CD-ROMs compiled from the IRD’s map collection, based on
work conducted over many years and in many countries. The main map publication events of
2005 were Vingt ans de cartographie régionale au Cameroun, Atlas régional de la province
Extrême Nord et du Sud Cameroun, Carte morpho-pédologique intéractive de Guinée and Atlas
environnementaux au Viêt-Nam.
To address society’s expectations of science, the IRD raised public awareness through its young
people’s clubs and some hundred lectures, debates and informal science discussion groups. With
Contact: dic@paris.ird.fr
The JRD Clubs at Unesco
During the conference on “Biodiversity: science and
governance” at the Unesco building in Paris, the IRD
held a video conference on “biodiversity for tomorrow”,
in which nearly 150 young people from North and South
took part. They were from IRD-run clubs called Jeunes
Recherche pour le Développement (JRD Clubs) in
Cameroon, Madagascar, Senegal and France. With their
teachers and an IRD scientific adviser to assist the
discussion, they talked enthusiastically about biodiversity
issues and challenges. This project, launched at the
request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was organised
in partnership with the research Ministry.
Meanwhile JRD Clubs in schools in the Amiens area shared the work they had been doing all year long
on the ecosystems of Picardy. Their work was impressive enough for three of the youngsters to be invited
to draw conclusions from their workshop at a plenary sessions of the Unesco conference.
Annual report 2005
Promoting a research
ethic for the South
The Consultative Committee on professional conduct and ethics
Chair
Dominique Lecourt,
Professor of philosophy, Denis Diderot University (Paris 7)
Members from developing and emerging countries
Rafael Loyola Diaz
Researcher, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Autonomous National University, Mexico
Isabelle Ndjole Assouho Tokpanou
Honorary President, Forum for African Women Educationalists, Cameroon
IRD staff members
Sandrine Chifflet
Research engineer, CAMELIA unit (UR 103), Marseille
Maurice Lourd
Director, IRD Centre, Bondy
François Simondon
Director, Epidemiology and Prevention research centre (UR 024), Montpellier
Members from the scientific community
Jean-Claude André
Director, European Centre for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation
Roger Guedj
Professor, joint director of the Bio-organic Chemistry Laboratory, CNRSUniversity of Nice Sophia Antipolis (UMR 6001)
Vladimir de Semir
Associate Professor of Science Journalism, Pompeu Sabra University, Barcelona
34
35
T
he work of the IRD’s consultative committee on professional conduct and ethics was more
diverse this year and there was more activity. About fifteen research projects and questions
raised by IRD staff were examined and the Committee continued its discussions with ethics
committees in other French institutions - discussions that are soon to result in an inter-institution
Web portal on ethics in science.
The Institute took part in some twenty outside events and added more information to its Website.
The undoubted high points of the year were the production of a Guide to Good Practice in
Development Research (see box) and the holding of a first international seminar at the Collège de
France on the question “Is there an ethic specific to research for development?”, with Southern
countries participating.
Is there an ethic specific to research for development?
The seminar at the Collège de France included three round tables, on vaccination, humans in their
environment and conflicts of value. The purpose was to:
• bring to light research-related ethical issues that can give the notion of partnership its full value
as a universal sharing of intellectual resources
• reflect, discuss and together suggest some partial answers to questions raised.
The seminar was a great success, with 180 participants. Partners from Brazil, Chile, Colombia and
Ecuador, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Madagascar took part alongside people
from the IRD, other French research bodies and universities, Unesco, the French national
consultative committee on ethics, the pharmaceuticals industry and ministries.
The opening speech summed up the different aspects of development to be taken into account
- social, environmental, economic and ethical - while clearly demarcating the concept of
development from that of growth.
The debates highlighted:
• the importance of the dialogue of knowledge between North and South and the reappropriation
by the South of universal values, the “ethical attitude” being fundamentally common to North
and South
• the role of multidisciplinarity in research, by which different approaches can be
reconciled, the ethics of research being inseparable from the ethics of sustainable
development
• the need to define the partnership clearly, to teach and encourage ethical practice, ethical
practice being a horizon rather than a doctrine.
Contact: ccde@paris.ird.fr
www.ird.fr/ccde
GUIDE TO GOOD PRACTICE IN RESEARCH
FOR DEVELOPMENT
• How should a research project for development be conceived, elaborated
and constructed?
• How should the programme be set up and conducted with full respect of
the culture of each partner and in conditions that are acceptable to all?
• How should the results be exploited, disseminated and promoted for the
benefit of all partners?
• What action should be taken to ensure that the results are translated as
quickly as possible into policy decisions, in such a way as to enhance the
well-being of the population and respect for the environment?
These were the questions the ethics committee aimed to answer with its Guide de bonnes pratiques de
la recherche pour le développement, which spells out 15 principles representing the “ethical horizon” to
be attained, starting from questions raised in the field. The guide is the fruit of the Committee’s first
mandate and is intended as a tool to bring implicit ethical questions to light, facilitate application of the
rules of professional ethics and help researchers think more clearly about their practice. In its second
mandate the Committee will be taking the guidelines further, with the help of all IRD staff and partners
and for the benefit of all.
Annual report 2005