Knowledge, information and data – and the social and physical infrastructures that carry them - are widely recognized as key building blocks for a more sustainable agriculture, effective agricultural science, and productive partnerships among the global research community.

This Workshop is based on the argument that the processes by which knowledge, information and data are generated and shared are being transformed and reinvented – especially enabled by ongoing developments in the area of information and communication technologies (ICTs) – and that these transformations provide massive opportunities for the entire Agricultural Research for Development (ARD) community to truly mobilize and apply global scientific knowledge, in ways that are hardly yet appreciated.

Catching and successfully harnessing these ‘waves’ requires strategic investments in capacities, bandwidth and infrastructure, skills, tools and applications, and the adoption of an ‘open innovation’ mindset that breaks barriers, links data and knowledge, and guarantees the public accessibility of goods generated and captured through science.

The Workshop will discuss some of the trends and changes we can expect in the coming years:

• Increasingly ‘ubiquitous’ connectivity along value chains – We will all make use of a range of devices and platforms to access and share knowledge: From the web to phones, radio, video and text messaging. Most scientists will work in knowledge-rich environments; farming communities, probably using different devices, will be far more connected than at present. Multiple connectivity paths widen the potential reach of science.
  
  
• Increasingly ‘precise’ applications and tools – ICTs and digital signatures or labels of various types will be used to track products from producer to consumer; to monitor local soil, weather and market conditions; to tailor data and information services to the demands of a specific audience or individuals. Applications will come in many shapes and sizes, to suit even the most specialized needs.
  
  
• Increasingly ‘accessible’ data and information – Vast quantities of public data and information held by institutions and individuals will become visible and re-usable at the click of a device. More intermediary skills and applications will be needed to help harvest, make sense of, and add value to these layers of data and information.
  
  
• Increasingly ‘diverse’ set of applications available across digital clouds – The digital ‘identities’ of scientists and their collaborators will give them access to a wide range of online tools and applications, accessible from any location and across different devices, enabling collaboration across boundaries as never before. Local firewalls and server configurations conditions will not restrict global sharing.
  
  
• Increasingly ‘inter-connected’ tools and knowledge bases – Different communities and their knowledge will be able to connect and share with each other, along the research cycle and across disciplines, including people with different engagement in science such as farmers, traders, politicians. A whole new breed of products and services will emerge to inter-connect and re-present diverse knowledge.