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CIAT is a living and adaptive organization of excellence that contributes to capacity strengthening, stimulates learning, and shares knowledge in agricultural and related sciences

In international agricultural research, learning, capacity strengthening, and knowledge exchange are fundamental for the delivery of international public goods. They are also a sine qua non condition for results-based research and development organizations. For more than 40 years, CIAT has had great direct and indirect impact through its capacity-building-and-strengthening activities with agricultural institutions in developing countries. More than 12,000 professionals from Latin America, Africa, and Asia have benefited from training at CIAT through specialized courses, group events, individualized training, and thesis work.

CIAT offers several capacity-strengthening modalities at both undergraduate and graduate levels:

• Group events combine conferences, training courses, laboratory practices, and fieldwork. They also include distance-learning courses.
• Individualized training, practices, internships as well as thesis work towards postgraduate degrees.

How to Become a Visiting Researcher at CIAT Headquarters

The employing institution and/or university where the student or professional is enrolled must present a request for capacity strengthening. CIAT will then assess suitability,

Please note that CIAT’s Capacity Strengthening Initiative does not provide direct funding for any individual or group training programs, or for any scholarships, internships, or fellowships. Prospective applicants must arrange their own funding and sponsors.
For more information, contact: Eleonora Izquierdo (ciat-capacity@cgiar.org)

Request for capacity strengthening

Beneficiaries

We offer training opportunities to the technical and scientific personnel of a broad range of local, national, and international institutions, whether public, private, or mixed. CIAT also welcomes personnel from development and nongovernmental organizations, preferably those involved in agriculture-related areas. Special preference is given to those who work in the areas of research carried out by CIAT and other CGIAR Centers (see http://www.ciat.cgiar.org  )

CIAT’s Research Areas

CIAT welcomes and hosts capacity-strengthening initiatives in its three major research areas, which are:

• Agrobiodiversity, which involves crop research in beans, forages, cassava, rice, and tropical fruits. The area also includes one of the world’s largest genebanks.
• Climate Change and Capacity Strengthening has three areas of research: (1) adjustment to global changes in climate and helping decision-makers weigh the pros and cons of different policies; (2) knowledge management, participatory monitoring and evaluation, and capacity-strengthening interventions; and (3) gender participatory research and participatory plant breeding.
• Tropical Soil Fertility falls into two programs: (1) Integrated Soil Fertility Management, which emphasizes nutrient management for enhanced agronomic efficiency and production at the plot and farm scale; and (2) Sustainable Land Management, which looks at the management of soil biological resources at the landscape scale.

 

Program-Specific Research Opportunities

Rice

• Applied breeding, using different methods, including population breeding and hybrid development
• Characterize pathogen populations and identification of sources of resistance in rice
• Enhance the contribution of rice to human health (breeding for increased iron and zinc contents in rice)
• Breed for grain quality
• Screening methods for biotic and abiotic stresses (including cold tolerance)
• Mechanisms of physiological tolerance of stress (nitrogen-use efficiency, acid-soil tolerance, drought, and cold and heat tolerance)
• Use of wild rice species to broaden the genetic base of cultivated rice
• Use of biotechnology in rice improvement (marker-assisted selection, genetic transformation, and anther culture)
• Multiple environmental evaluation of rice breeding lines

For more information, see Rice research program

Beans

• Mechanisms of physiological tolerance of stress (e.g., drought, low soil fertility, heat, and waterlogging)
• Endophyte-mediated resistance to pests and pathogens
• Mechanisms of iron and zinc uptake and transport to seeds
• Root health, including resistance to soil pathogens
• Enhance the contribution of beans to human health (improving intake and status of iron and zinc; increasing intake of compounds that help reduce the risk of chronic diseases)
• Breeding methods to incorporate marker-assisted selection

For more information, see Beans research program

Cassava

• Explore genetic resources in search of high-value traits through partial inbreeding and other pre-breeding approaches
• Rapid multiplication schemes of good quality, disease-free, planting materials
• Integrated pest-and-disease management approaches for long-cycle crops
• Genetic resistance to pests and diseases
• Postharvest processing of cassava roots and foliage, emphasizing drying alternatives and bioethanol production
• Starch quality traits, and functional properties and potential applications of different starch types
• Breed clonally propagated crops, including the use of selection indexes and general combining ability
• Use of molecular markers to enhance breeding capacity
• Breed for special traits such as enhanced nutritional quality
• Mutation breeding for special traits
• Genetic transformation of cassava and field evaluations under suitable biosafety regulations
• Best agronomic practices, emphasizing suitable fertilizer applications, prevention of soil erosion, and mechanization of planting and harvesting
• Fungal endophytes for plant protection

For more information, see Cassava Research Program

Tropical Forages

1.  In Asia (similar research may be done in other regions):

• Participatory research at farm level
• Market assessment and development
• Technology development to improve animal nutrition and welfare
• Identify and develop alternative forage-and-livestock-based livelihood options
• Cross-cultural adoption patterns and constraints

2.  In Colombia:

• Entomology, pathology, focused germplasm evaluation
• Develop near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) calibration equations for quality of tropical forages, silages, and diets
• Pool all available information on nutritive value and agronomic parameters of tropical forage species from the last decades of CIAT’s research for public availability, that is, include the information in the electronic database Tropical Forages: An Interactive Selection Tool, available at www.tropicalforages.info
• Optimize fermentation and lyophilization conditions, and cryoprotectants for a tropical silage inoculant to promote commercialization and utility for small farmers
• Mechanisms of adaptation of tropical forages to abiotic stress factors
• Role of forages in mitigating climate change

For more information, see Tropical Forages Research Program

Sustainable Land Management (Africa)

• Inventory and characterize soil biodiversity; study effects of land use change and land use intensification on soil biodiversity
• Methods, tools, and techniques, including molecular, to determine soil biological diversity and functional profiles
• Tools to assess soil quality and health, and diagnose soil health constraints; develop soil health and quality indicators
• Economic evaluation of soil ecosystem services
• Soil carbon dynamics; soil carbon modeling
• Innovation platforms to use as tools to link farmers to research and markets
• Develop data and information products/services for making recommendations on soil management, especially in relation to restoring degraded soils and fertilizer use
• Evaluate management practices, farming systems, and agricultural systems to improve and maintain soil health (sustainability and eco-efficiency), including the management of soil organic matter, nutrients, and soil biological resources
• Model spatial distribution of soil-related ecosystem services; model resource flows across the landscape

For more information, see Sustainable Land Management Program

Integrated Soil Fertility Management (Africa)

• Functional soil biodiversity with specific focus on enhancing nutrient-use efficiency and other ecosystem services
• Develop principles of integrated soil-fertility management (ISFM) within crop-livestock and rice-based systems and conservation agriculture for maximum productivity, profitability, and equity
• Guiding principles to maximize water and nutrient-use efficiency through locally adapted deployment of fertilizers, resilient legume germplasm, and biological inoculants
• Input and output markets, and better health and nutrition, as drivers for the adoption of ISFM
• Promote the dissemination of developed ISFM products and associated knowledge systems

For more information, see Integrated Soil Fertility Management Program

Genetic Resources

Download the research opportunities

For more information, see Genetic Resources Program

Decision and Policy Analysis Program

• Climate change data down-scaled globally and regionally in Latin America and Africa
• Economic and agricultural modeling of climate change impact on agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods
• Participatory approaches to understanding community responses to climate risks
• Modeling spatial distribution of ecosystem services (biodiversity, carbon, and water)
• Evaluate payment schemes for ecosystem services in Latin America
• Public policy analyses of the efficacy of projects and programs to ensure inclusion of small farmers in markets
• Develop new business models for public- and private-sector organizations to bring benefits to the poor by linking farmers to markets
• Ex post and ex ante impact assessment of agricultural technologies and projects
• Site-specific agricultural innovation through modeling, and participatory approaches to sharing farmer knowledge
• Analysis and monitoring of habitat change in Latina America (e.g. deforestation)
• Policy recommendations for a better management of natural resources, improved food security and agricultural production and in general, for sustainable rural livelihoods

For more information, see Decision and Policy Analysis Program (DAPA)

Capacity Strengthening and Knowledge Management Initiative

• ICTs for development
• Participatory monitoring and evaluation
• Participatory documentation; sistematization
• Social network analysis
• Knowledge management tools and methods
• Individual and group learning, production of training materials

For more information, see Capacity Initiative