Danish Development Research Network
On 14 January 2019, DDRN held its first General Assembly since a relaunch of DDRN was initiated in the second half of 2016. The General Assembly elected the members of the DDRN Board 2019-2020 to replace an Interim Board functioning during 2016-18. Associate Professor Johannes Dragsbæk Schmidt, Aalborg University, was elected Chairman of DDRN.
Qiaoran Wang travelled from China to the Sustainable Energy Planning Research Group at Aalborg University (AAU) for co-supervision during her PhD project on urbanisation and energy transition in China. China is going through a process of rapid urbanisation. The priority to increase the use of renewable energy motivated Qiaoran Wang to focus on low carbon urbanisation policy. How can renewable energy be used in the residential sector? She spent the final year with the research group and went back to her home university, Yunnan University, South West China, in September 2018 for the PhD defence.
Ubuntu refers to African customary law, based on the value: ‘I am because we are’. Nadeem Salie’s PhD thesis argues, as entitled, that ‘The utilisation of Ubuntu can promote accountability in public officials and state institutions as well as give effect to social solidarity in South Africa’. Nadeem spent more than seven months at Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, to study the Danish welfare state as part of his thesis work.
The third DDRN seminar on South-North research cooperation takes place at the Odense campus of University of Southern Denmark. The PhD presentation is by Priscila De Morais Lima, who is an external PhD student, SDU Life Cycle Engineering, She will present her work on Solid waste management in Brazil.
Addressing an audience of frequent flyers at the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen, professor Kevin Anderson, called out for urgent CO2 reductions.
Chunfang Zhuo is Associate Professor at Department of Planning at Aalborg University (AAU). Ten years ago, she came to Denmark on a PhD scholarship to study ‘Group Creativity Development in Problem and Project-Based Learning Environment in Engineering Education’. Her research is cross-cultural comparing young engineers in China and Denmark. A key question is how humour is used differently for creativity in technology design.
The second DDRN seminar on South North research cooperation was held at Aarhus University. Keynote was by Saowalak Bunma, PhD student at Dept. of Bioscience, on ‘My research within Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity and my experiences as a PhD student in Denmark’
Meet the Ecuadorian palm-expert who has dedicated almost twenty years of his career to specialize in this plant-family which is widely popular – for conservation and industrial purpose. Just in Ecuador there are 140 palm species – and this man knows to distinguish them all.
Once dry tropical forests in Ecuador were common ecosystems. Now there is only eight % left of this type of forest, which has had the bad luck to compete with the most invasive of all species: The humans. Meet the Ecuadorian scientist who has specialized in the dry tropical forests.
Danish support to research in Ecuador has contributed to document the mega biodiversity in the national park of YASUNI – the biggest in the country, the most famous – and also by far the most controversial national park – maybe even in the South American continent.
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