Following on from searches carried out by both GCP and the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), GCP is delighted to announce the winners of the PhD scholarship tenable at WACCI, University of Ghana. Each of the selected winners will be linked to one of GCP’s Challenge Initiatives (respective Challenge Initiatives – or ‘CIs’ – are indicated in brackets below). The students to be funded by GCP are:

• Teyiou Benoît Joseph Batieno of Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles (INERA), Burkina Faso (cowpea CI)
• Joseph Adjebeng-Danquah of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research–Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR–SARI), Ghana (cassava CI)

The winners will commence their five-year plant breeding programme in January 2010, and are expected to cover two years of academic study at the University of Ghana, followed by three years of field research at their respective research institutes or universities in their home countries.

The GCP/WACCI search also identified the following students, to be funded by WACCI:

• Uzoma Chizoba Okechukwu of the National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Ibadan, Nigeria (though currently carrying contracted at the Africa Rice Center in Cotonou, Benin) – cassava CI
• Alice Jelimo Kosgei of Embu Agricultural Staff Training (EAST) College, Kenya (chickpea CI)

Please join us in congratulating the four winners, and in wishing them the very best in their forthcoming PhD studies.