Faculty Engage with CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research

Drs. Carolyn Sachs, Ann Tickamyer, and Paige Castellanos actively participated in the first annual scientific conference and capacity development workshop hosted by KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Their participation is part of the three year-long collaboration between Penn State's Gender in Agriculture Energy and Environment Initiative and the CGIAR, which includes the Gender Research and Integrated Training (GRIT) program.

As a trailblazer with her work on gender and agriculture, professor emeritus, Dr. Carolyn Sachs, participated in a retrospective on gender within the CGIAR along with Dr. Christine Okali, Consultant, and Dr. Margreet Zwarteveen, Delft Institute for Water Education. The unique format of a "fishbowl" discussion allowed audience members to witness a conversation between three leaders in the field, as they voiced the struggles they faced in their work and gave advice for up and coming researchers.

Dr. Ann Tickamyer lent her expertise in research methods to a panel discusison reviewing the research presentations of the scientific conference. Along with Margreet van der Burg, Wageningen University, Julie Newton and Franz Wong, both from KIT Royal Tropical Institute, the panelists shared their impressions of the presented work and pushed the participants to continue advancing gender research.

The Penn State team also participated in the capacity building workshop through an interactive session on communicating gender research to a non-gender research and scientific audience. The team shared some difficulties that gender researchers may encounter and strategies to highlight the legitimacy of their work. As a final item, the team was able to connect with GRIT post-doctoral scholars who have attended the training program at Penn State and who will be returning in the summer of 2018. Everyone looks forward to the ongoing strengthening of this rich and productive partnership!

Learn more about the GRIT program here: http://agsci.psu.edu/international/gaeei/projects/gender-research-and-integrated-training-grit

Learn more about the event here: http://gender.cgiar.org/gender_events/annual-scientific-conference-capacity-development-workshop-cgiar-collaborative-platform-gender-research/