The Transformative Engagement Network (TEN) is a research project funded through the Programme for Strategic Cooperation between Irish Aid and Higher Education and Research Institutes between 2012 and 2015.

    The project partners are Maynooth University (lead), University of Mzuzu, Malawi, Mulungushi University and the Zambian Open University in Zambia. 

    The Transformative Engagement Network seeks to enhance the capacity of universities to better serve the needs of smallholder food producers within vulnerable communities  as they cope with the challenges of climate change. We seek to initiate new knowledge flows and exchanges of expertise between rural communities, the agencies and organisations that work with each community, and between national and international bodies concerned with agriculture, food security, nutrition and climate change.

    The TEN-hunger project will demonstrate the potential of universities to promote and facilitate a range of participative, inclusive engagements between communities, policy-makers, and universities with a view to enhancing the capacity of food insecure smallholders and agencies working with them to adopt climate-sensitive agricultural techniques and to improve the nutritional status of community members.

    A masters level degree and a number of short undergraduate courses will be developed for in-service policy makers and service providers involved in climate change and food security. A research network and repository about demand-led agricultural production, climate change adaptation and nutritional outcomes will be established in order to provide widespread global access to research generated by the masters’ students and collated by the project in general.

    Project Team: Prof Anne Ryan (Adult and Community Education), Prof Martin Downes (Biology),
    Dr Conor Murphy (ICARUS), and Dr Bernie Grummell (Adult and Community Education)