Former ICARDA PhD researcher receives prestigious award

A researcher who previously completed her PhD research at ICARDA has received a prestigious award for an academic paper documenting the impacts of the Center’s participatory barley breeding program in pre-war Syria – specifically the program’s impacts on women’s empowerment. Dr. Alessandra Galiè, who conducted the research under the supervision of two ICARDA researchers, received the Elsevier Atlas - an award that acknowledges research with significant impacts on lives around the world.

The article - entitled ‘Women’s empowerment through seed improvement and seed governance: evidence from participatory barley breeding in pre-War Syria’ – was published in the Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences and builds on the empirical findings of a 6-year study (2006-11) on participatory breeding.

The paper demonstrates the links between women’s empowerment, seed improvement and seed governance, and suggests how gender-blind seed governance regimes at national and international levels restrict the empowerment of these women, ultimately affecting food security. It also contributes to current discussions on effective pathways to develop smallholder agriculture, and enhance gender equity, food security and rural livelihoods in the dry areas of the temperate world. 

The paper can be accessed here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1573521417300027