Consultation Meeting for the Biosafety Research in Bangladesh Grants Program

In the last two decades, Bangladesh has made considerable strideswith genetic transformation research to develop genetically engineered (GE) crops. Research has progressed both at public and private research
institutes, as well as at universities. Many of the research outcomes are now ready or will soon be ready for biosafety assessment.

To strengthen local capacity to produce and disseminate information supporting biosafety assessment, the South Asia Biosafety Program (SABP) launched the Biosafety Research in Bangladesh Grants Program (BRBGP) at the beginning of this year. The BRBGP is a competitive grants program managed by the Agriculture & Food Systems Institute through SABP and supported by the United States Agency for International Development. The main objectives of this program is to promote the development of biosafety research capacity and establish baseline information related to current agricultural practice in Bangladesh.

The BRBGP uses a preproposal evaluation process to provide feedback to potential applicants. After evaluation,
qualifying applicants were invited to submit full proposals. On April 29, 2019, a consultation meeting was arranged at the SABP office in Dhaka with the short-listed applicants to discuss the format of the full proposal. During the consultation meeting, Dr. Andrew Roberts explained the format in detail, as well as the review process that will be used to evaluate the proposals. This was followed by an open discussion session with the qualifying applicants.