This blog was originally published on the website of LEG4DEV
In December 2023, the LEG4DEV research project, funded through the EU Commission’s DeSIRA Initiative, concluded their second Research Progress Meeting for 2023, reviewing the ongoing progress by the LEG4DEV researchers across the project’s Activity Areas.
In addition to fortnightly progress meetings for each Activity Area research team, the LEG4DEV project also runs two internal LEG4DEV Research Progress Meetings per year, where the LEG4DEV researchers from across all Activity Areas present their latest findings and draft research outputs. The research underway focuses on intensification of legume-based systems, spanning agronomy, nutrition, water, labour, enterprise and policy research. There is a strong emphasis being placed on generation of research outputs that can be of use to next-users for scaling of legumes for development outcomes.
The LEG4DEV Research Progress Meetings are a platform for sharing of research ideas, approaches and for coordination across the partners and researchers. The thematic cross-cutting and participatory approach helps foster shared understanding across the research teams and is critical for the progress of the LEG4DEV initiative.
Research supervisors and scientists from across the LEG4DEV partner organisations also attended in relation to the research activities they are engaged in with the project. ILRI scientist, Dr. John Recha who is a key member of the LEG4DEV research team, gave a presentation on participatory approaches, highlighting the importance of stakeholder and scaling partner participation.
For 2024, the project has a strong focus on accelerating the shift to more extensive primary data collection through field trials and stakeholder surveys to critically evaluate the accuracy and reliability of current assumptions, models and methodologies. Recognizing the importance of engaging with scaling partners so that research outputs are of use for scaling legumes, the project is placing a renewed emphasis on more extensive scaling partner engagement.