The full list of 20 funding awards resulting from CONNECTED pump-prime funding (PPF) call is shown below. These research projects involve:

• 33 institutions
• 55 researchers
• 11 crops
• 14 countries

Amongst CONNECTED’s key objectives is enabling members to successfully apply for research funding. So we provide PPF for a wide range of short-term research projects. The aim is that these can be used as the basis for future larger-scale funding applications.

Using the links below, you can read a series of short articles with more detail about the scope of the projects, countries, institutions and people involved in each of them.

Pump-prime funding call 1

Developing eco-friendly insecticides

Low-cost surveillance for Sub-Saharan Africa

Understanding the spread of maize disease 

Developing biopesticides against whitefly

Correlating disease symptoms with virus levels

Which insects transmit cassava viruses?

Improving disease resistance in Kenyan crops

Identifying insect vectors

Unifying Cassava Brown Streak Disease surveillance

Pump-prime funding call 2

Mechanisms of transmission of cocoa swollen shoot virus by two species of mealybug vectors

Identification of mealybug vectors involved in the transmission of Dioscorea bacilliform viruses infecting yam in northern Nigeria

Formal identification and characterisation of the viral pathogen causing a new aphid-associated disease of cabbage in Ghana

Cucurbit viruses and their control in the small-scale farming communities of Zimbabwe

Modelling of cassava brown streak virus spread by the insect vector Bemisia tabaci

Occurrence, distribution and molecular diversity of viruses on groundnut crops in Kenya

Identification of vectors transmitting viruses in tomato in Uganda

Characterising viral diversity in vegetable crops to enable targeted resistance breeding

Rapid and inexpensive diagnostic tools for virus disease surveillance in sub-Saharan Africa

The prevalence of ‘plant-vectored’ insect-pathogenic viruses in Kenya and their potential for bio‐control of plant virus vectors

Tracking genetic diversity and development of diagnostic tools for maize lethal necrosis viruses in Uganda

The institutions involved are:

• African Regional Postgraduate Programme in Insect Science, University of Ghana
• Bindura University of Science Education, Zimbabwe
• Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, Kenya
• Centre National de Recherche Agronomique, Cote d’Ivoire
• Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe
• East-West Seed, Thailand
• Fera Science, UK
• ICRAF (World Agroforestry Center), Cote d’Ivoire
• International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria & Tanzania
• International Potato Center, Peru
• Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria
• Keele University, UK
• Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization
• Makerere University, Uganda
• Mars Cocoa, USA
• Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
• National Crops Resources Research Institute, Uganda
• Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, UK
• Newcastle University, UK
• NIAB EMR, UK
• Russell IPM Integrated Pest Management, UK
• Rwanda Agriculture Board
• Syngenta Seeds BV, Netherlands
• The James Hutton Institute, UK
• University of Aberdeen, UK
• University of Bristol, UK
• University of Cambridge, UK
• University of Ghana, Soil and Irrigation Research Centre, Ghana
• University of Nairobi, Kenya
• University of Warwick, UK
• University of the West of England, UK
• Wesley University Ondo, Nigeria
• World Vegetable Center, Mali