AAUN Australia Awards Agricultural Research Symposium in Nairobi

The 2015 Joint Australia Africa Universities Network (AAUN) and Australia Awards Agricultural Research Symposium took place in Nairobi on 25 November. The Australian High Commissioner to Kenya, HE John Feakes, took part in the opening ceremony of the Symposium at the Southern Sun Mayfair Hotel in the city.

Other speakers on the day included researchers, academics and lecturers from the universities of Cape Town, Nairobi, Pretoria and Sydney. A highlight of the symposium was the short one-slide presentations of the 24 Australia Awards in Africa Short Course participants who shared their current projects and work plans on return (WPRs) with the audience. This was followed by working group sessions where participants broke into thematic workshop groups to investigate potential collaborations, using innovative solutions to increase the impact of their work. According to the participants who also attended the Increasing the Development Impact of Agricultural Research Short Course since 2 November, both the Short Course and the Symposium not only opened their minds to new ideas and possibilities, but will definitely also open doors to improved agricultural research, practices and food security in their home countries in future.