As the third quarter of 2012 comes to a close, the Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC) has awarded more grants to Southeast Asians affiliated with Kasetsart University (KU), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), conferring more than US$11,000 in grants, as of date.
In particular, Mr Saktyanu Kristyantoadi Dermoredjo (PhD agricultural economics, UGM) and Ms Roxanne Almendral Banalo (MS environmental science, UPLB) have been awarded the UC Student Thesis Grant. On the other hand, Ms Warabhorn Boonyarat (PhD computational chemistry, KU) has been awarded the UC Student Travel Grant for Research which shall provide travel funds to conduct a portion of her dissertation at University of Queensland (UQ) on 1 February-30 June 2013.
Meanwhile, two faculty members from KU and UGM were also awarded the Faculty Travel Grant for Research and Faculty Travel Grant for Conference, respectively. Dr Jureerat Leesmidt, Associate Professor in Microbiology is scheduled to work with Dr Jan Engelstaedter, School of Biological Sciences at UQ on 7-20 April 2013 on “The applications of evolutionary biology between genetic systems and plant-microbe interactions for agricultural benefits.”
Dr Masyhuri, Head of UGM’s Center for World Trade Studies will present his paper “The Impact of Cooperatives Membership on Paddy Farmers’ Welfare in Lampung Province, Indonesia,” at the International Conference on Cooperative Enterprises: Key to Sustainable Economic and Social Progress, organized by UPLB’s College of Economics and Management and to be held at SEARCA, Los Baños, Laguna on November 8-10, 2012.
With the aforementioned awardees, the Consortium has been able to confer a total of 11 of these new grants since January 2012. The 2012 UC Faculty and Student grants aim to expand the academic and research opportunities available to UC faculty members and graduate students. Application requirements and other details about these programs and the Consortium can be found in the UC website at www.uc.searca.org.
Launched in 1989, the University Consortium was initiated by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) together with five founding members in Southeast Asia as a sustainable strategy to pursue regional agricultural human resource development by linking top agricultural universities in the region to facilitate free exchange of information, facilities, and expertise.
Today, the University Consortium also includes reputable agricultural universities from Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan as associate members.
