Open Source, Commons and Development: A Research Agenda on Common Pool of Services of Generation Challenge Programm (GCP)

Abstract

"This article discusses a new research agenda on open source commons in life sciences and its interrelationship with development discourses. The main research question for this article is: why it is important to have a research project on open source and commons? The paper starts with a historical review of the seed germplasm characteristics and its transformation in twentieth century, followed by the rise and problems of the plant patent acts and intellectual property regimes. This is used as a background for the emergence of a new trend in knowledge production based on sharing knowledge. It is argued here that the sharing mechanism is a new trend in academic discourses and it has strong potential for facilitating innovation and inclusive technology development, as a result a systematic study is needed to investigate the potential. Moreover, sharing and commonly produced knowledge are always succumbed for private appropriation and how commonly produced knowledge remain common is also an important motivation for this project. In order to perform a research on open source and commons, Generation Challenge Programme is proposed here because of its international networking for improving crop genetic diversity, upstream-downstream connection, and development commitment. Subsequently the theoretical and methodological issues are also discussed."