CONNECTED - COmmunity Network for africaN vECTor borne plant viruses

我们提出了一个媒介传播疾病(VBD)研究中的网络，重点是改善对植物病毒的控制，即非洲媒介传播植物病毒的‘连接’社区网络。我们的重点是撒哈拉以南非洲，这是世界上最贫穷的区域之一，在那里，VBD对主食和经济作物的生产造成了极大的限制，例如木薯(木薯褐条病和花叶病)、甘薯(甘薯病毒病)、玉米(玉米致死性坏死)和山药(巴纳病毒和山药花叶病毒病)。限制生产会导致贫困、粮食不安全和营养不良，进而阻碍经济和社会发展。新的VBD的出现，加上气候变化、资源限制和人口增长，将比世界其他地区更快、更显著地影响这一地区，并具有全球意义。需要更有效的农业研究社区制定一系列创新的疾病控制战略，以提高农业生产率，改善小农的收入和市场参与度。‘CONNECTED’旨在改善撒哈拉以南非洲人民的生活，首先，与该地区现有的网络、利益攸关方和资助者接触，集中并完善最紧迫的研究目标，防止与现有活动重叠，并以该网络的工作为目标，以确保英国的学术卓越发挥最大影响。其次，“连接”项目将推动一系列有针对性的创新活动，以便在短期内产生切实的产出，为该地区的病毒学家和其他受益者提供能力建设和培训。最后，我们将专注于将研究人员和其他从业者与政策制定者、资助者、推广服务和认证计划建立联系，为VBD领域的知识交流和可持续活动创造一个论坛，确保英国学术卓越的目标是在项目三年后对地区发展产生影响。Connected组建了一个跨学科的管理委员会，由独立主席、经验丰富的管理团队和有效的治理结构组成。每个成员在撒哈拉以南非洲都有积极的合作，致力于控制VBD的不同但互补的方面，确保所开展的工作具有相关性、新颖性，并最有效地利用学术优势。我们有来自东非和西非五个重要研究机构(研究所、卡罗、KEPHIS、AATF和NARO)的董事会成员，为经合组织发展援助委员会定义的三个中低收入国家--肯尼亚、乌干达和尼日利亚--的网络活动提供重点。我们拥有VBD方面的顶尖专家，以及可持续发展、社会科学和环境科学、影响、学习、评估和跨学科方面的专家。我们的委员会不仅涵盖学术研究机构，还涵盖区域内的政策、推广和认证，以便不仅专注于研究的卓越，而且在区域内产生长期的影响。委员会已经确定了五个关键领域，在这些领域“相互联系”将有利于可持续的VBD控制：1.控制战略，2.病媒生物学，3.新疾病，4.病媒/病毒相互作用，5.诊断/监测/预测；由官方发展援助相关声明确定。委员会已决定将重点放在特定的单一作物VBD之外，将所有对非洲小农重要的VBD包括在内。到目前为止，国际投资主要集中在特定的VBD(如木薯和红薯)上，而一些被忽视和新兴的VBD(如山药、玉米和豆类)仍未得到充分研究。Connected的一个主要目标是将英国和非洲的专家联系起来，将跨作物、学科和地区的知识聚集在一起，以最大限度地影响对小农重要的混合种植制度的粮食安全。

We propose a network in Vector Borne Disease (VBD) Research focusing on improved control of Plant Viruses, namely 'CONNECTED' - COmmunity Network for africaN vECTor borne plant viruses. Our focus is Sub Saharan Africa, one of the poorest regions of the world and in which VBDs create highly significant constraints for production of staple and cash crops, for example cassava (cassava brown streak and mosaic diseases), sweet potato (sweet potato virus disease), maize (maize lethal necrosis) and yam (badnaviruses and yam mosaic virus diseases). Limiting production causes poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition, which in turn prevents economic and social development. Emergence of new VBDs in combination with climate change, resource limitations and a growing population will impact this region sooner and more significantly than other parts of the world and is of global significance. More effective agricultural research communities producing a pipeline of innovative disease control strategies are needed to increase agricultural productivity, improve incomes and market participation for smallholder farmers. 'CONNECTED' seeks to improve livelihoods of people in Sub-Saharan Africa by, firstly, engaging with established networks, stakeholders and funders in the region to focus and refine the most pressing research targets, preventing overlap with existing activities and targeting the work of the network to ensure UK academic excellence has maximum impact. Secondly, 'CONNECT' will pump prime a number of targeted innovative activities to generate tangible outputs in the short term, provide capacity building and training for virologists and other beneficiaries in the region. Finally, we will focus on growing 'CONNECTED' beyond researchers and other practitioners, to policy makers, funders, extension services, and certification schemes to generate a forum for knowledge exchange and sustainable activity in the field of VBD, ensuring UK academic excellence targets its research to deliver regional development impact beyond the three years of the project. CONNECTED has assembled an inter-disciplinary management board with an independent chair, an experienced management team and effective governance structure. Every member has active collaborations in Sub Saharan Africa working on diverse but complementary aspects of VBD control, ensuring the work undertaken is relevant, novel and utilises academic excellence most efficiently. We have board members from five significant research institutes in East and West Africa (IITA, KALRO, KEPHIS, AATF and NARO), providing the focus for the network activities within three Lower Middle Income Countries as defined by OECD's Development Assistance Committee, namely Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. We have leading experts on VBD as well as specialists in sustainability, social and environmental sciences, impact, learning, evaluation and inter-disciplinarity. Our board covers not just academic research organisations, but policy, extension and certification within the region, so as to not just focus on research excellence, but to deliver long lasting impact in the region. The board has identified five key areas where 'CONNECTED' will benefit sustainable VBD control: 1. Control strategies, 2. Vector biology, 3 New Diseases, 4. Vector/Virus Interactions, 5. Diagnostics/Surveillance/Forecasting; as identified by the ODA relevance statement. The board has decided to focus beyond specific single crop VBDs to include all VBDs of importance to African smallholders. To date international investment has focused predominantly on specific VBDs (e.g. in cassava and sweet potato) with some neglected and emerging VBDs (e.g. in yams, maize and beans) remaining under-researched. A major aim of CONNECTED will be to connect UK and African experts to pull together knowledge across crops, disciplines and regions to have maximum impact on food security from the mixed cropping systems important to smallholders.