Prof. Murray Lark delivered statistics research methods module for University of Zimbabwe students

I recently read a remarkable book called Victorians and Numbers (Goldman, 2022). This tells the story of how a diverse set of academics, campaigners and politicians in Victorian Britain were enthused by the idea of collecting, analysing and visualising data to identify social problems and injustices and to support policies to address them.  Parallel movements in …

The Baobab Genome Project: approaching the mysteries of diversification and death – by Levi Yant

With its unmistakeable shape synonymous with the continent, the baobab is an African icon. It is also important on a very practical level: its nutritious fruit, pulp and seeds have been eaten across Africa for ages. High in vitamin C and other nutrients, the use of baobab in the global diet is radically increasing, with …

AfriPlantSci 2019: Healthy Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Planet: Building African capacity to tackle African Plant Health Challenges in Africa

This post is written by Dr Silvia Busoms and Assoc Prof Levi Yant It’s an exhilarating time for outward-looking researchers who wish to engage with the rest of the world. It has never been easier to make links with like-minded workers anywhere to team up together to tackle real world problems. As a result, international research …

Global-local knowledge systems for innovation and entrepreneurship in the developing world: An international workshop in Nottingham, 2-3 May 2019

This post was written by Dr Bin Wu and Dr Peter Noy. About 2 billion people (two thirds of the population) in the developing world live on about 500 million small farms, defined as plots of land smaller than 2 hectares. Smallholder farmers are “knowledge-rich, but economically poor” and there is a significant gap in …

‘Reach and Teach Science in Africa’: Strengthening Research Capacity for Generating Future Foods

This post is written by Dr Ute Voβ and Dr Thomas Alcock. In April 2019, Nottingham Research Fellow Dr Ute Voß and Doctoral Prize Fellow Dr Thomas Alcock received funding through the Future Food Beacon Partnership Fund to travel to Benin, West Africa. In this article, they offer insights into their experiences teaching molecular biology …

CEPHaS: understanding soil water and its potentials for agriculture

Conservation agriculture (CA) is a set of practices which have been proposed to improve the resilience and sustainability of crop production, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where food security is endangered by the increasing frequency and intensity of drought seasons under climate change.  In CA, the structure of the soil is not disturbed by cultivation, …

Anatomics in Pearl Millet

We are excited to announce funding from The Royal Society 2018 International Collaboration Award scheme for the project entitled: ‘Anatomics in Pearl Millet: Improving yield and drought tolerance of a major dietary staple food in the Sahel’. This 3 year research project builds on the trans-disciplinary expertise of teams co-led by Prof Malcolm Bennett at …