WHAT IS AHEAD?
AHEAD is the international umbrella organization under the Wheat Initiative (WI) that coordinates core initiatives and projects that are dedicated to addressing scientific gaps and to establish synergies that will support the development of new wheat varieties that are resilient to heat and drought. Our stakeholders are from research, economy and policy organisations who are eager to meet the global challenges in wheat research by pooling resources.
WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AHEAD AND…
The Wheat Initiative (WI)
The WI is a vibrant global public-private research community that shares resources, capabilities, data, game changing ideas, and technologies to improve wheat productivity, quality, and sustainable production around the world.
The Wheat Initiative is composed of 14 member countries, 6 industry partners, 2 research organizations and 5 observer countries. The motor of the Wheat Initiative are the 11 Expert Working Groups (EWG) consisting of over 600 members from 48 countries. The work of every member is voluntary and the WI is held together by the great benefits the network is providing to the researchers, countries, companies and organizations. The complete framework of the WI is coordinated by the Wheat Initiative Secretariat which is taking over communications, organizing meetings and workshops, offering help for applicants and members and many things more.
In order to find out more about the WI please visit www.wheatinitiative.org.
AHEAD was established by the WI as an individual program to adapt wheat to challenges caused by the climate crisis, especially to increasing heat and drought problems. In more detail, the idea of AHEAD was born in the Expert Working Group (EWG) Adaptation of Wheat to Abiotic Stress (AWAS), discussed with the Scientific Board of the WI and was finalized by founding AHEAD in August 2020. Due to this history and the organization of the AHEAD Coordination Office AHEAD acts as an individual but closely associated organization next to the WI.
Expert Working Groups (EWGs)
The Expert Working Groups are part of the WI. Until now, the WI counts 11 of them. They consist, as the name indicates, of international experts from various fields aiming to join a network to share data and knowledge and to discuss about the latest issues in their specific field. The EWGs, based on their composition, have their finger on the pulse of time, working on solutions for the driving questions in wheat research. Their cumulative scientific output given to the Scientific Board, the Research Committee and the Institution Coordination Committee is used to give advice and guidelines to research organizations, companies and governments all around the world in order to reach higher wheat yields, higher wheat quality and develop sustainable growing systems.
The EWGs work together as groups, supervised by a chair and co-chair.
AHEAD is tightly connected to the WI but acts as an individual organization. The leadership is taken over by a Steering Committee, which is composed of members from governmental and funding organizations, as well as from international research bodies. They are also members of the WI, some of them are part or even chairs of different EWGs. They are defining priorities, giving insight into national funding strategies, connecting project leaders with different stakeholders and offering oversight of activities of the EWGs. AHEAD aims to establish a network of projects, which are dedicated to Wheat Heat and Drought Research. This network and the leadership by the SC should give these projects a higher value, enhancing sharing of data, germplasm, protocols etc. regarding topics of Wheat Heat and Drought. It should also improve the establishment of new collaborations and support raising funds allowing the members to continue their work on this important research field. Therefore, the framework of AHEAD should support the research on Wheat Heat and Drought by detecting synergies, by connecting researchers, countries and organizations and by building up on others research rather than performing unnecessary double work on the same topics.
The work of AHEAD is coordinated by the AHEAD Coordination Office. The AHEAD Global Coordinator, which is leading the office, takes over the communication, organize meetings and workshops and enhancing visibility by different tools (webpage, press releases, Flyer Twitter, etc.). Thereby its sets the framework on how AHEAD is able to work effectively and successfully.