Course Details - Plant Breeders' Rights for Food Security and Economic Development
Intellectual property rights for plant breeders
The protection of the rights of plant breeders is an important stimulus for the development of better plant varieties. The possibility to claim intellectual property rights on a variety gives a breeder the exclusive rights to exploit it and to prevent others from doing so illegally. Many countries are therefore developing and implementing a legal framework for the protection of plant varieties within an intellectual property rights system. Besides developing legislation, the implementation of the Plant Breeders' Rights system has far-reaching consequences of a legal, institutional, technical, financial and commercial nature. In this course, participants will learn about these consequences, and about practical ways to implement new regulations.
UPOV Distance Learning Course
Participants that register timely and have been accepted are invited to take part, free of charge, in the UPOV Distance Learning Course (DL-205) 'Introduction to the UPOV System of Plant Variety Protection under the UPOV Convention'.
Courses are currently online
Our courses are currently online and follow this format:
- Pre-course assignments for you to get to know WCDI and for us to get to know your work environment and your expectations about the course;
- Interactive plenary sessions where we share content, review assignments and facilitate exchanging experiences. During those interactive sessions we work with a number of online tools like Google Jamboard, Mural and Mentimeter;
- Group work either online or offline where you with other participants address a specific question or do an assignment. Results of these assignments are also shared and discussed during online sessions;
- Individual assignments where you will read literature, watch videos, and do exercises on your own. These assignments are an essential part of the learning and most of them count for getting the certificate. They are meant to introduce or deepen knowledge and make the link between theory and your own situation. These assignments are reviewed either by peers or facilitators.
In some, but not all courses we go on virtual field visits – showing you ‘live’ situations in the field, or with companies or organisations that we collaborate with. We offer coaching trajectories where we support you one-on-one or in small groups to review your individual learning paths in the course and help with any basic questions you may have.
Online platforms: Zoom and TalentLMS
Internet connection is important for the completion of the course. Not sure about the connection in your area? Send training.cdi@wur.nl an e-mail about your situation.
We use Zoom as a facilitating platform for all our online courses. Our courses take place in general over a 6-8 week period to make the workload and time you spend online manageable.
Our online learning system is TalentLMS. Everything you need — our course programme, chatrooms, assignments, background information are in this system. TalentLMS is easy to operate, can also be accessed by your phone and has an on-and offline functionality. We even organise a technical check-in before the course starts, to test your facilities and get familiar with the tools.
Course planning and certificates
The course workload is approximately 16-20 hours a week (2-2.5 workdays).
The exact programme of your course will be available 2-3 weeks before the start of the course. If you’ve successfully completed your course we send you a digital certificate.
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