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
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
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
Conway died of blood cancer on 30 July 2023, at the age of 85.[1]
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