Julie Ingram mentoring workshop in Kazakhstan

Julie Ingram is currently in Kazakhstan acting as a mentor, at a British Council Researcher Links Workshop on Management of Innovation in the Agricultural Sector and is offered within the Newton – Al-Farabi Partnership Programme. The workshop is running from the 14th to 18th November.

The workshop aims to increase research capacity of UK and Kazakhstani early career researchers and promote collaboration between them. Kazakhstan is a major wheat producer and exporter but it is felt that the agricultural sector could  increase its competitiveness, as part of this the workshop is investigating causes of inefficiencies in innovation management and identifying solutions.  In this respect the workshop will explore the role of human capital and institutional capacity development in research and extension, as well as support and investment for technological innovation.

Julie will be a mentor at the workshop supporting the coordinators – researchers from UK and Kazakhstan, and also delivering a keynote paper: “Changing perspectives for understanding agricultural innovation: from farmers’ adoption to systems approaches”. She will also be leading a discussion on Research challenges for agricultural innovation: integrating social perspectives.

The UK and Kazakhstan workshop participants come from universities within both nations and represent diverse fields, such as agriculture, remote sensing, biodiversity, economics, nutrition, tourism, business, policy studies, and regional studies. Julie continued:

“we have worked in groups and as a mentor I am facilitating discussion and preparation of collaborative multidisciplinary research proposals amongst participants which are aiming to understand different elements of innovation processes in Kazakhstan. As well as these discussions, we have visited an experimental and educational agricultural centre, a new large scale greenhouse installation and a bakery near Almaty.”

The workshop is being coordinated by Professor Gavin Reid from Abertay University and Professor Sholpan Smagulova from Narxoz University, Kazakhstan.

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Julie Ingram with workshop participants – Almaty, Kazakhstan