The OpenPlant Forum provides a platform for exploring the potential applications of reprogrammed biological systems, and a framework for exploring the wider implications of the potentially disruptive new technologies. The Forum is held annually, in the last week of July, alternating between Cambridge and Norwich.

The Global Challenges Initative leads the Civil Society Workshops to facilitate the understanding of global challenges by academics. International NGOs and UN agencies present challenges faced by developing world communities from the perspective of those communities in order to enhance demand-led global challenges research.

The first of a series of meetings dedicated to the formation of thematic working groups, some of which are likely to focus on coordinating funding proposals.

This practical course is designed for PhD and early career scientists who want to gain confidence, experience and in-depth knowledge about atmospheric science fieldwork.

The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) focuses on understanding the rise of ‘authoritarian populism’ in rural settings across the world, as well as the forms of resistance occurring and the alternatives being built. New exclusionary politics are generating deepening inequalities, jobless ‘growth’, climate chaos, and social division. The ERPI is focused on the social and political processes in rural spaces that are generating alternatives to regressive, authoritarian politics.

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is running a series of international Global Engagement Meetings. The aim of these events is to showcase the opportunities available through the GCRF; to bring together developing country and UK researchers and representatives from other organisations to forge networks; and to discuss opportunities for maximising the contribution of GCRF research into policy and practice.

BBSRC, Defra and NERC, in partnership with the Sustainable Intensification Research Network (SIRN), are holding a workshop for researchers with interests in or expertise relevant to the sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture. This workshop aims to build on the legacy of Defra’s Sustainable Intensification Platform (SIP) and provide opportunities to link with other current sustainable intensification activities.

Given that 90 per cent of recorded major disasters caused by natural hazards from 1995 to 2015 were linked to weather and climate change, many organisations are now building their capacity to understand what needs to be done differently to integrate adaptation to climate change with their work on disaster risk reduction (DRR). However, it is not always obvious how these two areas can fruitfully connect and operate in tandem within the wider context of development. This course organized by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS, University of Sussex) provides participants with increased knowledge of the concepts and intersections of climate change and DRR, and the approaches, methods and tools that can be used to more effectively integrate climate change in DRR.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) engages people in communities as agents of change. Traditionally, development project ‘beneficiaries’ have rarely been included in researching issues, finding solutions, designing indicators or measuring change. PAR provides a way of changing this, offering an inclusive community-driven approach to development. It is also an effective way of building participatory learning into organisations supporting development and social change. This course organized by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS, University of Sussex) equips development professionals with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to design, develop and conduct context-sensitive PAR