British ecologist (1938?2023)
Sir Gordon Richard Conway
KCMG
FRS
FRGS
FREng
(6 July 1938 ? 30 July 2023) was a British agricultural ecologist, who served as the president of the
Rockefeller Foundation
and the
Royal Geographical Society
. He was latterly Professor of International Development at
Imperial College, London
and Director of
Agriculture for Impact
, a grant funded by the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
, which focuses on European support of agricultural development in Africa.
Early life and education
[
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Gordon Richard Conway was born in
Birmingham
on 6 July 1938.
[1]
He was educated at the
Bangor University
,
Cambridge University
and the
University of the West Indies
in
Trinidad
. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree at the
University of California, Davis
.
Career
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In the early 1960s, working in
Sabah
, North Borneo, Conway became one of the pioneers of
sustainable agriculture
and integrated pest management. From 1970 to 1986, he was Professor of Environmental Technology at the
Imperial College of Science and Technology
in London. He then directed the sustainable agriculture program of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London before becoming Representative of the Ford Foundation in New Delhi from 1988 to 1992. He was Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Sussex
and Chair of the
Institute of Development Studies
.
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Conway was elected the eleventh President of The Rockefeller Foundation in April 1998, a position he held until 2004.
[6]
From 2004 to 2009 he was also
President of the Royal Geographical Society
.
[7]
He took up his appointment as the UK
Department for International Development
's Chief Scientific Adviser in January 2005, serving until 2009.
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
Conway later worked at Imperial College London and headed the Bill & Melinda Gates-funded project Agriculture for Impact looking into ways to increase and enhance agricultural development for
smallholder
farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was an independent advocacy initiative, and was based at
Imperial College London
and was supported through the Agriculture for Impact
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
.
[13]
According to the organisation's website, the initiative ran until the summer of 2016.
[14]
Agriculture for Impact also convened the Montpellier Panel, a group of international experts from the fields of agriculture, trade, policy, ecology and global development. He was a Deputy Lieutenant for East Sussex.
Death
[
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Conway died of blood cancer on 30 July 2023, at the age of 85.
[1]
Honours and awards
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Books
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He authored:
- Unwelcome Harvest: agriculture and pollution
(Earthscan, Island Press)
ISBN
1-85383-036-4
- The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for all in the 21st century
(Penguin and University Press, Cornell)
ISBN
0-8014-8610-6
[19]
- Islamophobia: a challenge for us all
(The Runnymede Trust)
ISBN
0-902397-98-2
.
He co-authored:
References
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External links
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