Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/12
Outputs
Target Audience: The policy outreach activities conducted based on the research conducted were quite extensive. Dr. Welch and others were invited on numerous occasions to present material from the study to international audiences involved in negotiations of the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The research team has also presented at numerous national and international conferences. Based on the work done on this project, Dr. Welch has also served as an expert during international negotiations. A. Invited presentations to international policy makers (1) Invited Presentation: United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), 13th Regular Session, July 2011. Organized a Side Event on Current Practices of Exchange and Benefit Sharing in the United States. Sponsored by USDA through a Cooperative Grant with UIC. Organized by UIC, July 20, 2011. Two presentations: (a) Eric Welch, Current GRFA Exchange and Benefit Sharing Practices in the United States: Findings from a National Survey, (2) Harvey Blackburn, Y. Plante, Samuel Paiva; Y. Toishbekov, Exchange of Animal Genetic Resources and the Implications for ABS. (2) Invited Presentations to US Government: Current GRFA Exchange and Benefit Sharing Practices in the United States: Findings from a National Survey, (a) Senior Staff Meeting, Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA, Washington DC, June 22, 2011, (b) Special Presentation, Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA, Washington DC, June 22, 2011 (3) Invited Presentation: E Welch and JLong, Agricultural Genetic Resource Patterns and Practices of Exchange: Preliminary Findings from a Study of US Agricultural Stakeholders, Side Event, Tenth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (WG ABS 9 continued), Convention on Biodiversity, Montreal, Canada, July 2010. (4) Invited Presentation: E Welch and J Long, Current Benefit Sharing Practices within the Diverse Community of GRFA Users, Side Event, Ninth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (WG ABS 9), Convention on Biodiversity, Cali, Colombia, March 2010, Panel Organizer. (5) Invited Presentation: J Long, E Welch and M Haller, Attributes, Access and Use of GRFA in the US: Preliminary Information and Methods, Foreign Agricultural Organization (UN FAO) Commission on Food and Agriculture, October 2009, Rome Italy. B. Presentations at national and international policy research conferences (1) Shin, EJ and EW Welch, Multi-level Factors Influencing Exclusive Sharing of Genetic Materials among US Agricultural Scientists. Public Management Research Conference (PMRC), June, 2014, Seoul, South Korea (with E Shin). (2) Welch, E and S Louafi, Contested Inputs for Scientific Research: Why Access to Biological Materials Is Blocked, April 2014, Midwest Political Science Conference, Chicago, IL. (3) Seyoum, A and EW Welch, Trading off Use Restrictions and Benefit-Sharing for Genetic Materials for Food and Agriculture with an Emphasis on Upfront Payments, 53rd Annual Conference of GEWISOLA, September 25-27, 2013, Humboldt University, Berlin. (4) Shin, EJ and EW Welch, Local Evidence for Global Biodiversity Policy: A Linkage between Ecological Systems and Social Exchange Patterns of Genetic Materials in a US Agricultural Research Community, Midwest Political Science Conference, April 2013. (5) Shin, EJ and EW Welch, Explaining Institutional Effects on Research Performance via Material-Sharing: A Path Analysis of Non-Plant Genetic Research. Presented twice: (a) Association of Public Policy and Management, November 2012, (b) Gordon Research Seminar, August 2012 (6) Shin, EJ and EW Welch, Exchange of Non-plant Genetic Resources for Scientific Research at both Domestic and Global Levels, Gordon Research Conference, August 2012. (7) Research Using Non-plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: Modeling Material Sharing Behavior, ISETS Conference, Invited Presentation, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, December 10, 2011. (8) Exchange Behavior of Scientists Using Non-Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture for Research: Findings from a National Survey, Invited Presentation, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, November 15, 2011. (9) Sharing Non-Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture Research: actors, paths, and consequences, Invited Presentation, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, November 16, 2011. (10) Agricultural Genetic Resource Patterns and Practices of Exchange: Preliminary Findings from a Study of US Agricultural Stakeholders, Side Event, Tenth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit?sharing (WG ABS 9 continued), Convention on Biodiversity, Montreal, Canada, July 2010 (with V Long). (11) From Yeasts to Beasts: non-Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Patterns and Determinants of Access, Use and Benefit Sharing in US Agribusiness. Presented twice: Nagoya University, Japan, May 14, 2009; National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan, May 22, 2009 C. Provision of expertise for and service on US government delegations (1) US Government Delegate, United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), 14th Regular Session, April 15-19, Rome, Italy 2013. (2) US Government Invited Observer, United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), Ad Hoc Technical Working Group on Access and Benefit-Sharing for Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (WG-ABS-1), Longyearbyen (Svalbard), Norway, September 11-13, 2012. (3) US Government Invited Observer, United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), 13th Regular Session, July 2011, Rome, Italy. (4) US Government Invited Observer, Expert on Access and Benefit sharing for Food and Agriculture, Nagoya, Japan, Conference of the Parties 10, Convention on Biodiversity, October 2010. (5) US Government Delegation, Invited Expert on Access and Benefit Sharing for Food and Agriculture, Ninth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (WG ABS 9), Convention on Biodiversity, Montreal, Canada, July 2010. (6) US Government Delegation, Invited Expert Access and Benefit Sharing for Food and Agriculture, Ninth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (WG ABS 9), Convention on Biodiversity, Cali, Colombia, March 2010. (7) US Government Delegation, US State Department, United Nations Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Invited Academic Expert on Access and Benefit Sharing for Food and Agriculture, Rome, Italy 2009. Changes/Problems: The primary change that occurred on the project was in leadership. Eric Welch replace Jennifer Long, who had accepted a position at US AID. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project provided the opportunity for training graduate students. It was particularly important for Dr. Eunjung Shin as she developed her dissertation from the data. Dr. Shin is now employed asa research scientist in the Korean Science Technology and Environment Policy Institute, a national policy research institute in Korea. Her work is focused on genetic resource policy. Dr. Shin was the primary research assistant on the USDA NIFA funded project. She was responsible for programming and administering the and online survey, and cleaning of the resulting data. She developed search protocols to identify the national population of researchers in three different sectors that use eight different types of GRFA organisms. She managed sample frame development. For the online survey instrument, Dr. Shin created a computer program to collect the names of multiple research projects entered by individual respondents, eliminate duplicate names, and advance the names forward in the survey as rows in future questions about the projects. She then managed all of the data transformations required to make the data operational and trained others in the methods she developed. In the fall of 2012, Dr. Shin was awarded a fellowship by the Institute of Environmental Science and Policy, a University of Illinois at Chicago campus-wide research institute, to support her dissertation work. In her dissertation, Dr. Shin integrated several theoretical perspectives to explain why scientists agree not to further distribute the genetic resources they receive and the effect the decisions have on the outcomes of their work, where outcomes include both publications and the production of intellectual property. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? There are several communities of interest related to this project. They include scientists using genetic resources, policy makers making decisions about the regulation and use of genetic resources, and the academic community. As noted elsewhere, the results from this study have been disseminated to members of all of these groups. Please refer to the Target Audience section of this report for more detail. Scientists were provided two briefings about the general findings of the survey. The briefings were promised as part of their participation in the survey. The briefings were delivered through email to survey participants. Policy makers in the US and other countries were informed about the project and findings through multiple presentations. Presentations were given in the Washington DC and in other international forums.The academic community is acurrent target of more in-depth analyses of the survey data. In addition to published work, the research team has developed four new manuscripts for submission using the data. Additionally, Dr Welch (PI) was invited to publish an editorial on genetic resource policy for the Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics (2012), which he did. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact Statement At the outset of the grant, the US was involved in international negotiations regarding an international regime governing terms of access to and benefit sharing (ABS) from the use of genetic resources. The regime, now in force globally, is called the Nagoya Protocol (NP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). At the time, US government officials recognized the need to be better informed about the potential implications of the NP for research and innovation in all sectors: government, university and industry. Hence, this project aimed to develop a policy-relevant understanding of genetic resources access, use and benefit sharing practices of the US food and agriculture user community. It was to gather data that would provide empirical input into US approaches and negotiating positions. It is important to note that although the US has not ratified the CBD, all of its trading and research collaboration partners have done so. As a result, US researchers in all sectors who depend on globalaccess to genetic resources are fundamentally affected by new constraints on the exchange of these materials. In this project, significant efforts were undertaken to both build the necessary knowledge for US policy and to provide the data and analysis in ways that informed ongoing negotiations. As noted in other parts of this report, the PI provided input to the policy process in two ways. First, it presented findings to the broad range of international stakeholders such that the data could help inform the overall policy process. Second, the PI was involved as an expert on the US delegation to the Commission on Genetic Resources held at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO). As a member of the delegations, he was able to translate information gather from US researchers for use in the policy environment. One key issue before policy makers was whether there should be a one-size-fits-all approach to the establishment of protocols and rules governing the exchange and use of genetic resources for all stakeholders and organisms, or if there should be a more flexible approach in which variation across stakeholders and organisms would be taken into account. The project provided clear evidence of substantial variation across organisms that would make the one-size approach to global regulation untenable. The US government was then able to base its position as an advocate of flexibility on supporting empirical evidence. In the end, the current negotiations on the implementation of the protocol for agriculture are focused on flexible mechanisms obtaining access and permission for use. The overall effect that this project had on affecting the course of negotiations and the ultimate policy outcome is difficult to discern.The project funding waslimited in comparison to the financial investment that has been made by all nations related to this area of policy. Additionally, negotiations on implementationare ongoing and ultimate outcomes are not visible. Nevertheless, the model, adopted by the project and accepted by NIFA, to undertakemultidisciplinary researchto inform a critical juncture of nationaland international policyworked as intended. Primary Research Activity and Data Collected National Survey of Researchers using Non-plant Genetic Resources. The sample frame for included the population of researchers who use any one of the eight genetic resources. University researchers were selected based on online searches of researcher profiles using the common and scientific names as keywords in 201 university websites. The universities included Carnegie classified research intensive and extensive institutions and veterinary universities designated by the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges. Government researchers were sampled from 262 subunits of Agricultural Research Services under the USDA which are located across the US. A total of 1435 university and government researchers were surveyed. Company researchers, those who work in private companies and non-profit organizations in the US, were sampled by integrating multiple membership lists and publicly available online information. A total of 1048 company researchers were surveyed. Summary Statistics The following provides an example set of descriptive statistics. More detail is available in journal articles, book chapters, thesis and other products. Nearly 70% of universities/college (68.5%) and government agency (68.8%) respondents report that they use genetic resources for basic research. Only 18.2% of company researchers use them for this purpose. Respondents generally agree that the value of the product or process depends upon the distinct characteristics of the genetic resources used. (Mean = 2.47,3 point scale). Sending organisms to other US entities: 69.1% of private industry respondents report sending organisms to other US entities, compared to 28.2% and 38.3% of respondents in universities and government agencies, respectively. Receiving from other US entities: 78.2% of private industry respondents report receiving organisms from other US entities, compared to 46.2% and 47.7% of respondents in universities and government agencies, respectively. Sending to foreign entities: 40.9% of private industry respondents report sending organisms to foreign entities, compared to 11.8% and 16.4% in universities and government agencies, respectively. Receiving from foreign entities: 36.4% of private industry respondents report receiving organisms from foreign entities, compare to 14.7% and 15.6% in universities and government agencies, respectively. 45.2% of respondents report that federal regulations are an impediment to exchanging genetic resources. Over a quarter of all respondents state that regulations in foreign countries (27.9%) are impediments. More than half (58.7%) of the respondents report that they were expected to provide information on project results upon obtaining genetic resources. Key outcomes and accomplishments The project resulted in the collection of data to inform policy as presented inthe impact statement above. The numerous presentations, outreach and engagement activities, trainingopportunities for graduate studentsand publications presented elsewhere in this report. In addition, the research had a significant impact on the PI by altering his research trajectory to undertake more multidisciplinary research in the Food and Agriculture arena. As a result of his work on this project, he has been able to continue work in this area through additional funding from NSF, OECD, Agropolis Foundation, Bioversity (a CGIAR Centers), Climate Change for Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and others. The PI continues to be actively involved in research investigating the implications of regulatory controls on the global exchange and use of genetic resources for food and agriculture. He has also been able to build up additional infrastructure - research faculty, PhD students, visiting scholars, etc. - in the area of genetic resources for food and agriculture. Hence, the NIFA investment has fostered an important sustained research endeavor in this area. Dr. Welch continues to be actively involved in genetic resources issues and is now overseeing the first globalevaluation of the United Nation's Genetic Resources Programs. Without the NIFA funding, this research trajectory and this level of US involvement in important genetic resource policy activitieswould not have happened.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Seyoum, A and EW Welch (in press) Ex-post Use Restriction and Benefit-Sharing provisions on Access to Non-Plant Genetic Materials for public research, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Welch, EW, EJ Shin and J Long (2013) Potential Effects of the Nagoya Protocol on the Exchange of Non-plant Genetic Resources for Scientific Research: Actors, Paths, & Consequences, Ecological Economics, 86: 136-147.
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Shin, Eunjung (2013) Exclusive Sharing of Genetic Materials in U.S. Agricultural Research: Antecedents and Consequences, PhD Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago.
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Dedeurwaerdere, T, S Louafi, E Welch and F. Batur (2012) Global Scientific Research Commons for Biodiversity Based Innovation in Digitally Networked Environments: A Neglected Tool for Implementing the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, in E. Morgera, M. Buck and E. Tsioumani (eds.), The Nagoya Protocol in Perspective: Implications for International Law and Implementation Challenges, Brill/Martinus Nijhoff.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Seyoum, A and EW Welch, Use of Material Transfer Agreements and Implications for Food and Agriculture Research. Manuscript under preparation for submission.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Welch, EW and S Louafi, Contested Inputs for Scientific Research: Why Access to Biological Materials Are Blocked. Manuscript under preparation for submission.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Seyoum, A, EW Welch and S Louafi, Explaining Non-Plant Genetic Materials Providers Expectation of Non-monetary Benefits and Its Incentive Role: The Case of US Public Research. Manuscript under preparation for submission.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Welch, EW and EJ Shin, Predictors of Researcher Agreements on Exchange of Genetic Resources: A Multi-level Analysis. Manuscript under preparation for submission.
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