Horizon Southeast Asia

Universities in Southeast Asia need and want to improve their research performance. This is needed in order address the numerous economic, social and political problems and challenges and to find solutions which are appropriate, given the conditions of the region. Twenty-five universities in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and East-Timor want to work together towards “pushing the frontiers of research and sustainability”.

The project aims at having four (yearly) conferences which all deal with the various dimensions of successful governance structures, accompanied by regular online-peer consulting on specific projects which are implemented at each of the participating universities. The project will benefit from the network built as part of the DIES-funded International Deans Course IDC (www.international-deans-course.de) and the willingness of IDC-alumni and other regional experts to share international experience from other Asian countries. Experience from Europe, especially Germany will add to this benefit of looking at other universities’ experiences.

As part of the second line of cooperation, it is planned to bring together 25 researchers for each of the three selected topics: Collaborative river governance, sustainable agricultural production and climate change are highly relevant topic in the Mekong region and in Timor Leste. Each year, another group of researchers will come together in a workshop and share their research work, to be followed by bilateral visits, typically in another country. By widening the horizon of young researchers in this way, new ideas, reflections, contacts will enrich the research projects. The sequence of workshops will start with the workshop on “climate change”, followed by “river governance”, and finally “sustainable agriculture”. For all three topics, a publication of the research results is planned.