Call for RUFORUM Triennial Conference Posters , 06 – 10 December 2021

Background

The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM)  is a network of 128 Universities in 38 African countries with mission to “strengthen the capacities of universities to foster innovations for strengthening agri-food systems through the training of high quality researchers, the output of impact-oriented research and the maintenance of collaborative working relations among researchers, farmers, national agricultural research institutions and governments” RUFORUM seeks to strengthen the capacities of universities by increasing opportunities for transformative student learning, creating and advancing research excellence, enhancing university innovation and knowledge generation, enhancing university community engagement, supporting policy dialogue and reform and supporting the involvement of women in agriculture. As a way of providing a platform for sharing best practices and networking, RUFORUM usually organises conferences, which bring together diverse stakeholders in the field of agriculture, higher education and industry. The conference also provides a platform for students to share their research work and identify mentors and other opportunities for their transitions out of universities, into employment or entrepreneurship.

In preparation for the proceedings of the Seventh African Higher Education Week and First Triennial Conference to be held on 06-10 December 2021 in Cotonou, Benin, RUFORUM is issuing a call for posters to strengthen dissemination of research outputs and lesson sharing.  The posters should focus on (but not necessarily limited to) the application of biological, ecological and social knowledge to the development of agri-food systems including livestock production, food and nutritional security and environmental resources management. The following thematic areas will be addressed:

1. Enhancing agri-food systems productivity
2. Strengthening livestock production systems
3. Improving food and nutritional security
4. Sustainable water and environmental resources management
5. Use of digital innovations, data management, economic and policy analysis
6. Upscaling impact of University and community connectedness
7. Entrepreneurship and youth employability

Participants wishing to present posters are requested to register using the following link on Application Form

The deadline for submission is 30th September 2021. All participants wishing to present posters are expected to prepare, print and carry their poster(s) for display during the Triennial Conference

Submission for review of posters

Please submit soft copy of your poster for review to bfandohan@gmail.com, gilles.nago@fa-up.bj, with copy to m.sylvanus@ruforum.org, r.rukarwa@ruforum.org; and a.mweetwa@ruforum.org

Guidelines and Tips for designing a good poster

When designing your poster think about how people read posters. You want to grab the attention of participants at a busy conference with several side-events, parallel sessions and networking events.

There are many ways of doing a good poster but below are some key points to consider:

1. A good poster uses illustrations to draw the reader to and communicate the topic of the poster without the reader having to spend much time reading text.
2. Think about your title – an interesting title which gets to the heart of what the poster is about and why it matters is more attractive than a technically correct title with scientific names and lots of jargon.
3. No text on the poster should be too small to read from a distance of about 1.8m (6 feet). The bigger the better (within reason).
4.  Generally, you may have to redraw your figures and illustrations for your poster – not just cut and paste them from a paper or thesis chapter. The rules about being able to read text from 1.8m applies even more so to the legends and axes on graphs, plates, and other illustrations.
5. The Triennial Conference brings together a very diverse audience and interdisciplinary participants. To effectively engage this diverse audience, please consider avoiding technical jargon and acronyms.
6. Think about the conversation message of your poster. Could someone get to the end of your poster and think ‘so what?’ If so then you need to be more explicit about why this work matters and how it is aligned to the theme and sub-themes.
7. Do consider including a picture of yourself (maybe in the field) so that someone who reads your poster and wants to meet you to learn more can easily find you.
8. Do not forget to include names of collaborators and logos of funders or your host institution.
9. Tell us how to find out more – you can include a web or email address or even a website link, and feel free to provide a sign-up sheet where people can leave their contacts (e.g., email address) if they want to hear more. If you are on Twitter consider uploading your poster to a slide share website such as http://www.slideshare.net/  and tweeting your poster with the Triennial hashtag, (this can attract people to your poster for a chat as well as allowing those following the Triennial deliberations from afar to see your work).
10. The more creative and imaginative the better in terms of effectively attracting participants to view and internalize contents of your poster!

Poster and Poster Board Design Layout

• Poster Board dimensions will be as follows: Height: 180cm, Width: 180cm as indicated in figure A below. Please note that one poster board is for 2 posters.
• If proposed Poster size is A0 then poster dimensions will be as follows: Width: 84.1cm; Height: 118.9cm or 33.1 inches x 46.8 inches  as indicated in the figure below
• Depending on the nature of the floor layout, one poster board can accommodate 4 posters if placed back to back

NOTE: All participants wishing to present posters are expected to prepare, print and carry poster(s) for display during the Triennial Conference.

call-for-posters_triennial-2021Download