涉农大学应培养服务于乡村可持续发展的创业者——“GCHERA世界对话”国际研讨会综述

Training Future Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Rural Development in Agricultural and Life Sciences Universities: Review on GCHERA World Dialogue

“GCHERA世界对话”国际研讨会于2013年10月20 ～ 21日在南京农业大学举行.研讨会以“农业及生命科学教育与创新——服务于乡村可持续发展创业者的大学”为主题,采取大会报告、专题研讨等形式进行了深入交流,来自30多所国外大学、研究机构和20多所国内大学的200多位专家学者参加了会议.大家认为,大学是社会创新的主要驱动者,涉农大学应当关注农业和农村发展未来,通过政策、制度和实践安排,促进大学与政府、社区和农户的合作伙伴关系,满足乡村可持续发展的知识需求;农业高校的核心任务之一就是培养学生的创业能力,要教会学生在创业中如何生存、如何持续发展和如何成功,通过鼓励创业精神、开设与创业相关的课程、大学与公司协同创新等方式培养创业型学生.会上还公布了2013 GCHERA世界农业奖评选结果,美国康奈尔大学国际植物育种专家罗尼·科夫曼教授获此殊荣,以表彰他为促进作物改良领域的全球合作所做出的卓越贡献.

The 2013 GCHERA World Dialogue was held on Oct.20-21, 2013 in Nanjing Agricultural University. The theme of this conference is “Education and Innovation in Agricultural and Life Sciences： Universities as Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Rural Development” and it was undertaken with deep discussions in the forms of keynote speech, workshop etc. Over 200 representatives from more than 50 universities all over the world participated in the conference. The conference emphasized that the universities are the main drivers of innovation in society, and argued that agricultural universities should promote the partnership with government, communities, and farmers and meet the needs of knowledge for sustainable rural development by policies making and practices based the future vision of rural areas and agriculture business. One of the main tasks for agricultural universities is to train the students＇ ability of entrepreneurship and their abilities of survival, sustainable development and success making in the business. In order to do so, universities should encourage the spirit of students in business pioneering, develop related curricula and participate in collaborative innovation with enterprises, etc. At the same time, the conference also declared the result of 2013 World Agriculture Prize, which was awarded to Professor Dr. Ronnie Coffman, an international plant breeder at Cornell University, in recognition of his remarkable success in promoting global collaborative partnerships and building leadership capacity in men and women interested in crop improvement.