Meeting with the Team: Laos

We travel to Vientiane to meet with our key partners: National University of Laos, MMG and Burnet Institute. As the principal investigator of this project, I hope to foster our relationship and to discuss key objectives of the project. 

The National University of Laos was established in 1997 and it is the largest University in Lao PDR. The amalgamations of academic from various disciplines make this University a real interdisciplinary academic institution. We met with Associate Professor Saengdeone Wayakone, the Director of the international affairs of the university and we discussed a number of ideas in terms of the management of this research project, expected outcomes and potential capacity building activities with postgraduate students and/or novice researchers from the National University of Laos.  

From this meeting we have achieved three important learning points:

1) Understanding research protocal in the host country is very important. New knowledge regarding research protocal in any institutions, country must be learnt, with your partners.

2) Engaging research team members from various academic backgrounds will add more views and value to your research in terms of methodology, vigor, and research approaches.

3) The values of your research project must be clearly communicated and commonly understood by all research partners. We learn from this process that we need to communicate the values/benefits of the project to the public. This will give a true meaning of our research project to the communities in Lao PDR, Thailand and Australia.

                                               The Monument of Prince Anuvong

 

 

 

 

Project Plan for November: Capacity building workshop and visiting our Partners

This month is an important month for the project since it is time for the capacity building workshop. We are traveling to visit our partners (the National University of Laos, MMG and the Burnet Institute) in Vientiane for 3-4 days and will discuss actions for 2014 with them.

Then, the capacity building workshop is scheduled on 25 and 26 November in Bangkok at Swissotel Nailert Park. The aims of the workshop include team meeting and discussion on the progress and plan of the project as well as capacity building training on data collection for our local RAs from Thailand and Lao PDR.

We will update the actions in November very frequently and will send around our newsletter to all project members. IF you are interested to receive an e-newsletter from this project, please leave your comments and email address in the blog.