Transformation Accelerating Grants awarded to six initiatives

​In July 2019, the r4d programme launched the first Call for Transformation Accelerating Grants (TAG) that allow teams of r4d researchers and non-academic stakeholders (e.g. policy makers, the private sector, development practitioners) to make use of the knowledge, tools and technologies developed within r4d projects through translation and implementation initiatives.

TAGs shall test, validate, accelerate or facilitate the uptake and utilisation of research findings from an r4d project on a local or national scale in r4d partner countries or on an international scale. Initiatives funded by a TAG are awarded a maximum of CHF 100'000 to be spent in one year.

Thirteen teams submitted TAG proposals in the first submission round on 18 October 2019. They were evaluated by eight r4d Review Panel members who recommended six proposals for funding. The National Research Council and its Presiding Board followed the TAG Review Panel's recommendation and ratified the funding decisions in the meetings on 10 and 11 December 2019.

The following six initivatives are awareded a Transformation Accelerating Grant:

• Cocoboards: upscaling of a sustainable low-end innovation to an industrial level , by Justino R. Arboleda, Coco Technologies Corporation, Philippines, Michail Kyriazopoulos and Frédéric Pichelin, both Berne University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
• Collective capabilities and action for sustainable agricultural intensification in Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar , by Win Myint Environmental Care and Community Secuity Ins, Myanmar, Thuya Zaw, Dawei Research Association, Myanmar, Henri Rueff and Flurina Schneider, both University of Bern, Switzerland
• Building up savings and financial skills for economic empowerment and wellbeing of woman and youth in rural Rwanda , by Philippe Hitimana, Umurenge Saving and Credit Cooperatives, Rwanda, Eliud Abucheli Birachi, International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Rwanda, Michèle Amacker, University of Bern, Switzerland
• Participatory land-use modelling to accelerate sustainable transformation applying a landscape approach , by Fenohery Rakotondrasoa, WWF Madagascar, Bruno Salomon Ramamonjisoa, ESSA Forêts, Madagascar, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Promoting the use of the Resource Impact Dashboard , by Pietro Toigo, African Development Bank, Mozambique, Virginie Tallio, IFSRA Insuce Foundation for Social Research, Burkina Faso, João Salavassa, Unilurio University, Mozambique, Fritz Brugger, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Supporting the implementation of sustainable woody invasive alien species management across multiple spatial scales in Kenya , by Simon Choge, KEFRI, Kenya, Boniface Kiteme, CETRAD, Kenya, Staline Kibet, University of Nairobi, Kenya, Winnie Nunda, CABI Kenya, Albrecht Ehrensperger, University of Bern, Switzerland, Urs Schaffner, CABI Switzerland

Short summaries can be found in the right column of the respective r4d projects from which the TAG initiatives emerge (see hyperlinks of TAG titles).