GOSH Roadmap: democratizing technology, from a Latin American perspective

As the year begins, also begin the efforts of low-budget university labs to make ends meet. The scene is unfortunately quite familiar to many of us in Latin America. How…

Tomato seeds growing

Seeding ideas: knowledge brokering and recombination for agricultural transformations

by Adrian Ely, Paddy Van Zwanenberg, Elise Wach, Martin Obaya and Almendra Cremaschi Straight after the ‘Transformations 2017’ conference, the ‘Pathways’ network gathered at the mid-point in our three year…

Composite image of a segment of the sun showing different light wavelengths

What does transformative research for sustainability look like?

by Patrick van Zwanenberg, Hallie Eakin, Ethemcan Turhan, Mutizwa Mukute and Fiona Marshall Efforts to nurture more sustainable, just futures are happening all around us, albeit in the context of…

Arduino unit

Can open and collaborative approaches change the world?

by Patrick van Zwanenberg, Mariano Fressoli, Valeria Arza and Adrian Smith Around the world, people are changing how things are made and how knowledge is produced, by involving more people,…

Farmers' jury

Using a “farmers’ jury” to see Nicaragua’s food system from rural perspectives

Jorge Irán Vásquez Zeledón, a participant in the project on Transitions to Agroecological Food Systems based in Nicaragua, has written a blog post (in Spanish) about a “Farmers’ Jury” organised…

Open Science discussion

How can open and collaborative knowledge help to build communities?

by Adrian Smith, STEPS Centre and Patrick van Zwanenberg, STEPS America Latina Experimentation with open and collaborative ways of creating knowledge is flourishing. How might the increasing interest in initiatives…

Argentina workshop

Could new alliances for seeds in Argentina be a way to nurture agricultural diversity?

Over the last three decades there has been an unprecedented process of concentration in world and regional seed markets. Seed R&D has shifted from being widely distributed over hundreds of…

world map made out of food

How open science practices in evaluation systems can make research socially relevant for developing countries

Researchers’ choices are inevitably affected by assessment systems. This often means pursuing publication in a high-impact journal and topics that appeal to the international scientific community. For researchers from developing…

Participants at a hackathon

From social networks to robot scarecrows: Agroecology meets Open Source technologies

Agroecology has been traditionally based on co-producing knowledge with farmers, scientists, indigenous communities and technicians. As such, it could be regarded as an “open and collaborative” practice. But does this…