Significant Dates in IRRI History

December

1 December: 1997, K.S. Fischer begins a stint as acting director general. 2005, The U.S.-based magazine Popular Mechanics has cited IRRI's IR8 (released in 1966) to be among the top 50 inventions that have "rocked the world" during the past half-century.

4 December: 2006, Director General Robert Zeigler gives a major keynote presentation on Climate Change and Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics: Preparing for the Worst with a Winning Approach; 2007, at the CGIAR Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Washington, D.C., Dr. Darshan Brar receives the group's 2007 Outstanding Scientist Award, which honors original work by a senior scientist whose contributions have actual or potential regional or international significance that furthers CGIAR goals. Click here to view a 2:30 video, which summarizes Dr.Brar's research and achievements. Also during the AGM, the team of scientists from IRRI and the University of California (Riverside and Davis) win the CGIAR Outstanding Scientific Article Award for 2007. The article, Sub1A is an ethylene response factor-like gene that confers submergence tolerance to rice, appeared in the 10 August 2006 issue of the prestigious journal Nature. Click here for more background on this important work. And Dr. K.L. Heong receives the $10,000 CGIAR COM+ Award for communicating science for people and the planet through the Environmental Soap Opera for Rural Vietnam.

5 December: 2006,
the CGIAR gene bank community, which includes IRRI's T.T. Chang Genetic Resources Center (photo), receives the CG's Science Award for Outstanding Partnership at the CGIAR Annual General Meeting in Washington, D.C. Click here to view a pdf of the scroll awarded.

6 December: 1982, N.C. Brady, former IRRI director general, receives the Philippine Golden Heart Presidential Award; 2002, the project to motivate rice farmers in Vietnam to reduce insecticide use, known as the No early insecticide spray project, receives the Golden Rice Award in Vietnam (poster).

7 December: 2001, IRRI hosts the very first Microarray and bioinformatics training workshop attended by 70 national NARES collaborators from China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Korea, Japan, and Iran; 2004, More than 300 bags of relief goods and supplies worth P75,000 (photo) are transported by IRRI to Infanta, one of the municipalities in Quezon Province hardest hit by recent typhoons Unding, Violeta, Winnie, and Yoyong; 2007, the Luang Prabang Branch of the IRRI-Greater Mekong Subregion Office is officially opened at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

8 December: 1998, G.S. Khush, IRRI principal plant breeder, receives the Rank Prize for Nutrition in London.

9 December: 1959, a Memorandum of Under-standing is signed in New York that establishes IRRI “as an organization to do basic research on the rice plant and applied research on all phases of rice production, management, distribution and utilization.” 2004, long-time IRRI Consultant Gelia Castillo (photo) receives one of five 2004 Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Awards given to pioneering Filipinos by the Philippine Jaycee Senate.

11 December: 2000, T.T. Chang, former principal geneticist and head of the Genetic Resources Center, is named a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science by Pope John Paul II. 

12 December: 1977, the Genetic Resources Laboratory is formally dedicated; 2001, IRRI IRRI management announces the freezing of eight vacant—or about to be vacated—internationally recruited staff positions tied to expected budget cuts in 2002," says Director General Ron Cantrell.

13 December: 2004, 1) CPS 1 & 2 are named the Ronald P. Cantrell Building (photo above), which was part of the farewell program for IRRI's eighth director general. 2) William Padolina begins a stint as acting director general until the next director general assumes responsibilities in March 2005; 2006, H.M. "Hank" Beachell (photo at left), IRRI rice breeding pioneer and 1996 World Food Prize Laureate, passes away at his home in Texas; he had celebrated his 100th birthday on 21 September 2006.

14 December: 2001, the IRRI-Korea Office (IKO) is formally inaugurated (photo).

15 December: 1986, S.K. De Datta, principal scientist and head of IRRI’s Agronomy Department, receives the first International Soil Science Award from the Soil Science Society of America; 2004, 1) IRRI officially opens its new Grain Quality and Nutrition Research Center (GQNRC; photo). 2) Fazle Hasan Abed, IRRI BOT member and founder and chairperson of BRAC, is awarded the 2004 United Nations Development Programme Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution to Human Development.

19 December: 2002, IRRI enters into a landmark research and capacity-building agreement with Japan's National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES), paving the way for the next stage of discovery revealing the genetic makeup of rice.

21 December: 1987, M.S. Swaminathan Hall (housing the Training Center) is formally dedicated (plaque photo).

26 December: 1994, Time Magazine selects IRRI’s new rice plant type as one of the five best environment stories of 1994.

31 December: 1969, U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew (center in photo at left) visits the Institute, here pictured in the rice plots with IRRI Director General Robert Chandler, Jr.