• EDUCATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING COMMITTEE Members

    A core committee was agreed during ICCC8 in Veldhoven. The Policy for membership was to include 2 representatives from 6 geographical regions and to establish working links with the WFCC Biodiversity Committee (chair B. Kirsop)

    Nina Gunde-Cimerman (University Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Slovenia) , chair nina.gunde-cimerman@uni-lj.si

    Maria Samsonova (St. Petersburg State university, Dept. of Genetics, St. Petersburg, Russia) samson@genet.lgu.spb.su

    Antonio Ventosa (University of Sevilla, Dept. of Microbiology and Parasitology, Sevilla, Spain) ventosa@cica.es

    Isabel Spencer Martins (Gulbenkian Institute, Dept. Microbiology, Lisbon, Portugal) ispencer@pen.gulbenkian.pt

    Elma Pretorius ( University of the Orange Free State, Dept. of Microbiology and biochemistry, Bloemfontain, South Africa) pretoree@micro.nw.uovs.ac.za

    S.M. Mpepereki (University of Zimbabwe, Dept. of Agriculture - soil microbiology, Harare, Zimbabwe) smpepe@zimbix.uz.zw

    Vullapa Arunpairojana (Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, Dept. of Bangkok MIRCEN, Bangkok, Thailand) mircen@tistr.or.th

    Ken-Ichiro Suzuki (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Japan Collection of Microorganisms, Saitama, Japan) ksuzuki@jck.riken.go.jp

    Raul Camacho (Riobamba, Ecuador) ccamacho@tu.pro.ec

    Gilson P. Manfio (Tropical Database, Campinas, Brasil) gmanfio@cpqba.unicamp.br

    Carolyne E. Babcock (Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, Canadian Collection of Fungal Cultures, Ottawa, Canada) babcock@em.agr.ca

    Richard A. Humber (US Plant, soil &Nutrition Lab. , USDA, Ithaca, USA) rah@cornell.edu

    Last modified: September 6, 2000

  • Goals

    1.Assesment of the needs for the establishment of new culture collections and of the training and capacity building needs of microbial culture collections on a global and regional basis.

    2.Development and continued promotion of capacity building and education programmes for CC s on a global and regional basis, with the main emphsis being on taxonomy and electronic communication systems (at least e - mail, informations about holdings on www) .

    3.Support of WDCM activities through collection and update of information on a regional basis.

    General Outline

    Many of the activities of the EBC Committee will be carried out regionally. The initial effort of the members will be towards building an assesment on the needs for establishment of CC, status of capacity building, education and training needs of the existing CC s in their area of representation. The proposal for regional development should be analysed in regional workshops, organized by EBC representatives of the region. Funds for doing the workshops should be sought on a regional basis and complemented with funds from international agencies.

  • Work Plan

    Activity 1. Assesment of CC s status and needs on a global and regional basis.

    An inventory of existing culture collections in different regions of the world will be conducted, mainly using data obtained from WDCM, supplemented with regional contacts. The assesment should be limited mostly to institutionalized (governement and research culture collections), less to CC maintained by individual scientist or company owned culture collections, because of difficulties in obtaining informations on their holdings and availability of the strains. Collections will be assesed through a questionnaire to be developed in collaboration with WDCM. This should lead to an assesment of particular regional needs, mainly in training (taxonomy and identification , preservation methods,management, electronic communication systems) and short to medium term plans for the establishment and development of the CC in the regions.

    Activity 2- Support to WDCM activities

    The EBC Committee will support WDCM activities in the aspects of gathering information on CC s not listed in the WDCM directory and helping to update the records of the listed CCs.

    Activity 3 - Proposal for Education and Capacity Building activities

    Based on the regional assesment, a proposal from EBC for different regions will be developed. The WFCC will endorse and support the regional applications for funds to organise workshops, curator training programmes and related activities (establishment of electronic connections, education about intellectual property rights and biodiversity convention implications) within the framework of the WFCC action plan. The proposal will be submitted to international funding agencies, as well as local and regional bodies, for obtaining necessary funding

    Activity 4. Strenghtening existing activities of CC

    The EBC will support efforts in order to promote the exchange of information , technical and scientific cooperation for initial and continuing support to newly established and already existing culture collections.

    The immediate action that will be taken by EBC is the distribution of a questionnaire, developed together with the Biodiversity Committee and WDC, for the assesment of CC needs in training and education. The questionnaire will be added to the WFCC Newsletter, as well as to the ECCO Newsletter. Readers are kindly asked to help in circulating it to the CC people in their regions, hoping that with the assesment of the needs EBC will be more able to make the right steps and help to overcome them.

    Nina Gunde - Cimerman Chair of the Education and Capacity |Building Committee