Our special guests are Jen Tyrell (Counsellor in Education and Science) and Watinee Karnwong (Deputy Director, Australian Educaton International) from the Australian embassy. They joined our first session and discussed roles of education and research in development. This project is clearly one of many initiatives from the Australian Government to promote educational and developmental links among Australia and developing countries in South East Asia.
We invited our in-country partners from Lao PDR (National University of Laos and Burnet Institute) and Thailand (Thammasat University) to participate in this inaugural capacity building workshop at Swissotel Nailert Park.
Associate Professor Sengdeuane Wayakone, the director of international relations and Prof. Somkiat, the Director of Research from the National University of Laos presented their ideas on research and process and protocal of research in Lao PDR to the team. A number of interesting issues, such as dealing with local stakeholders, language and manners in the data collection process, dissemination of research in Laos, were discussed among our team members.
From Thailand, Assistant Professor Suphat Supachalasai and his team from Thammasat University discussed issues on dealing with mining industry in Thailand, data collection in the Thai business environment, and promotion and dissemination of research project at Thammasat and their academic and industrial partners.
Our team members from the Nossal Institute of Global Health, Dr. Timothy Moore and Brigitte Tenni, presented the roles of Australian AID and research under ADRA scheme. We also discussed plan for the data collection and responsibilities among team members in the next 16 months.
We ended our workshop with discussion on plans for capacity building for students and young researchers in both countries, women associations, and mining workers in Lao PDR and Thailand.
In my opinion, the workshop promotes strong engagement and the flow of research ideas among team members from Australia, Lao PDR and Thailand. We really hope that young researchers who participated in the workshop will gain some ideas on research and gender equity.
