Category Community of Practice
Are we there yet?
Six months since we launched our Community of Practice and there is a sense of movement and progress. But if my objective is for it to be a self-sustaining buzzing network of ideas and initiatives, we are probably still a long way from that. The energy mainly comes from me in the centre. But what is […]
Strategizing when everything is unknowable
Our Community of Practice has been writing a strategy document to help us get a shared understanding of what we are doing. It has a vision and mission. It says a bit about why we think our workplace needs this focus on gender and social inclusion in our research into biodiversity for development and in […]
Can a CoP function with only voluntary contributions?
Everyone is busy. And yet, and yet… here we are working to nurture this community of practice (CoP) to improve the way we deal with gender and social inclusion in our research and workplace. Someone commented to me that it should not be “based on voluntary contributions”. It should systematically be built into people’s performance […]
The story of a Community of Practice: scoping technological support
Jeske has had the brilliant idea of having a Reading Group, in which all Community members will receive a suggested piece of reading and will be able to discuss it. So far so good. She has selected a reading but now what? If we send it by email, it risks being ephemeral and even if […]
The story of a Community of Practice: Baby steps towards the destination
Riding on the wave of enthusiasm of the plenary session on gender-responsive research at the beginning of Bioversity’s Science Week, after three years of scoping and defining, it was time to actually do something. For once I took my own advice! Back in 2013, writing about how to set up a community of practice for […]
The story of a Community of Practice: Coalescing and launching
After so much planning, Science Week last week at Bioversity was finally a great opportunity to coalesce around the idea of improving our gender-responsive research practice and find out who might want to participate in the community. The first step was to get an overview of what is actually going on gender-wise across the organization. […]
The story of a Community of Practice: Planning it into life
We had decided that a Community of Practice was what we needed at Bioversity to raise the bar of our gender-responsive research. But what now? What could we do to tranform that abstract decision to concrete action? Not that life was statically waiting for us to move. In the meantime, Maria conducted some hands-on workshops on ‘making gender […]
The story of a Community of Practice: How it began
This is the beginning of a story. I don’t know how long or short a story it is going to be nor where the plot is going to take us. It is the story of a Community of Practice. A Community of Practice on gender-responsive research for scientists exploring how people can best use and […]
Once the Capacity Development Initiative is Over: Using communities of practice theory to transform individual into social learning
Capacity development for agricultural research and development is missing an opportunity. Initiatives tend to focus on developing capacity of individuals and even when the ultimate aim is social change leave the transformation of individual into social learning largely to chance. I use the lens of social learning systems, particularly concepts from Community of Practice theory, […]
Becoming Better 