Amsterdam, 15 June 2005

Dear subscriber to "Biotechnology and Development Monitor",

After a period of relative absence, we are glad to announce that the "Biotechnology and Development Monitor" will continue to exist and be published, although in a new form.
The Network University and the University of Amsterdam have produced and published the "Biotechnology and Development Monitor" for 12 years, directing its content on the socio-economical impact of biotechnology on developing countries. During all these years the "Biotechnology and Development Monitor" was sent to the subscribers for free, thanks to the donors of the magazine. For this we would especially like to thank the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency.
As many of you may know, the Dutch government had to cut the funds for supporting initiatives like this. For us, it meant that we could either stop the publication or look for an organization that shares our goals and that was interested to continue the magazine. We are convinced that such a journal has still an important role to play, and we were very happy to find a party that wanted to give the magazine a new start. That is why we transferred the journal to a research network affiliated to Wageningen University & Research Centre, WUR.

Here, embedded in a scientific environment, the journal will undergo some changes compared to what you were used to. The general aim of the journal will be to find answers as to how to re-design biotechnology away from an MNO-centered, lab-oriented, capital-intensive and GMO-using application towards a stakeholders-oriented (farmers), field-centered, capital-extensive and non-GMO biotechnology.

With this background in mind, the journal has been renamed to "Tailoring Biotechnologies". This peer-reviewed magazine will be published three times a year and establishes a forum for serious debate and exchange on science and technology, particularly biotechnologies. It will give a voice to both established and younger researchers and academic analysts as well as practitioners.

For subscribers to the "Biotechnology and Development Monitor", the transfer will not have any major consequences. Our subscribers' database has been transferred to a research network affiliated to Wageningen University & Research Centre WUR, ensuring that you will receive future editions. All other changes that come with the transfer are elaborated upon in this first edition of "Tailoring Biotechnologies". In this first issue you will find all necessary information regarding the new journal, its publishers, cost and ways to contact.

The "Biotechnology and Development Monitor" website www.biotech-monitor.nl will remain online, with all articles from issues 18 to 50, as well as the Spanish Compendium and will remain freely available.

We hope that you have enjoyed and appreciated the "Biotechnology and Development Monitor" and that you will accordingly appreciate "Tailoring Biotechnologies".

With kind regards,

The board members of the Network University,
Vic Klabbers, Lara van Druten, and Gerd Junne

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Wageningen, 15 November 2005

Dear Subscribers,

After a period of relative absence, the "Biotechnology and Development Monitor" reemerged in the Summer of this year in the form of "Tailoring Biotechnologies". The differences between the journals may be summarized in a few words. The Biotechnology and Development Monitor was embedded in a journalistic environment, with the articles following and commenting upon actual developments in biotechnologies. Tailoring Biotechnologies is a peer-reviewed academic journal primarily concerned with analysis of actual biotechnology-construction and the potentialities of re-design (away from a capital centered and GMO-using applications focus towards one on development and society-centered forms of biotechnology).

Tailoring Biotechnologies establishes a forum for serious debate and exchange on bio-sciences and technologies. It will give voices to both established and younger researchers and analysts from academic as well as practitioner (and activist) backgrounds. The journal will publish articles in the following inter-related categories: technology development (e.g. democratization of technology), development theories (globalization, regionalization), actors of transformation (e.g. changing identities, such as the previously unbreachable division that separated agricultural workers from industrial workers), the co-creation of biotechnology and genomics with social-economic and power relations (e.g. the domination of specific paradigms such as a mechanical and materialized conceptualization of genes; the relation of biotechnology to a new system of biopower and the potential of linking biotechnology to biopolitics), case studies of tailoring strategies for transforming agro-industrial biotechnology into tailor-made biotechnologies (e.g. how public institutes and farmers organizations in India re-invented and redesigned Bacillus Thuriengiensis pest control).

Contrary to the Monitor - which received funding, in particular from Dutch Government - the journal Tailoring Biotechnologies is not subsidized. We adhere to an open source policy and intend to send the journal to all the (several thousand) readers of the Monitor (of which 80% are located in developing countries). Biotechnologies are €58 for institutions and €42 for individuals. We hope that all who are able will transfer the money to the journal so that we can continue with this initiative, to critically reflect on the possibilities for re-appropriating and transforming biotechnologies for and with the resource-poor. Electronic payment is possible through https://subscribe.tailoringbiotechnologies.com/.

Best regards,

The Editors of Tailoring Biotechnologies,
Guido Ruivenkamo and Joost Jongerden