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The fifth seminar in the DDRN series on South-North research cooperation is co-organised with UCPH Global Development, SCIENCE Sustainable Development Working Group at University of Copenhagen. It takes place at the Science Faculty campus in Frederiksberg. The key note presentation is by PhD student Carla Ximena Little, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

In March 2019 water pollution was discovered in the river Sungai Kim Kim in the city Johor Bahru, Southern Malaysia. The source was identified as 20-40 tonnes of oil waste illegally dumped into different parts of the river. Most likely, a nearby marine engineering or petrochemical factory wanted to save money and dumped waste that was supposed to be handed and disposed safely. The incident provokes chemical engineer Dr. Mohd. Kamaruddin Abd. Hamid, researcher and lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).

Meet a Colombian scientist, passionately researching about the pink river dolphin, a crucial species to protect aquatic ecosystems in the Amazon. The enormous habitat of those border-crossing dolphins makes them a key-species to protect big areas. If they are well, so is the Amazon. And when the Amazon is on fire, it affects species like the dolphin, as well.

Communicate a piece of your own research relevant to one or more of the global challenges, not more than 2 years old. It could be from any field of study, and it could be from your bachelor, or master thesis, a larger project, or from an assignment from one of your courses. We encourage both Danish and international students to participate in the competition. Deadline 1 Nov. 2019. 1st prize: DKK 5,000.

Helene Risør, an academic from the School of Anthropology at the Catholic University of Chile, has spent more than ten years away from Denmark. At the University of Copenhagen, Helene Risør, finished her PhD in Social Anthropology, in 2010. Currently, the majority of her research revolves around the social and political life of one of the southernmost countries in the world, Chile.

A dusty road leads me to Pece Primary School on the outskirts of Gulu town, a city in the northern Uganda. Just opposite the school, is a signpost that reads: “Gulu University Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies [IPSS].” It points towards a sizeable block sitting on an enclosed acre of land. The building’s cream walls and green roof have greyed due to age, Dr. Stephen Langole is a social scientist, who has studied different aspects of post war life in  northern Uganda. This time we are going to talk about his PhD thesis, UrbanYouth in Post-conflict Northern Uganda: Networking Livelihood Resources.

Xueqing He is a Chinese student, with a master’s degree from China Agriculture University in Beijing, currently on her last year of her PhD at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen. I met with Xueqing, to learn more about her experiences and findings, on how to utilize insects to regulate plant pests, as a sustainable alternative to the predominant use of pesticides.

Four PhDs from China, Pakistan and Bolivia currently studying in Denmark presented their research at a DDRN seminar during the Danish Science Festival 2019. Listen to the DDRN podcasts.

One of Uganda’s key concerns in education over the years has been the growing rift in performance between urban and rural schools. Primary and Secondary school grades in the national examinations largely tend to decline with distance moved from the country’s capital, Kampala. Solutions to bridge this gap and restore parity, however, could be in a book gathering dust in Gulu University’s library. Dr. Stephen Odama is fully aware that the knowledge in his PhD thesis could go unutilised, the way of most academic research in Uganda, unless there is publicity and awareness about his findings and recommendations.

Dr. Christine Oryema’s experience studying in Denmark would be the envy of any Ugandan PhD student who does not get the opportunity to study abroad, especially in countries that provide an ideal study environment. An ethnobotanist based at Gulu University, one of Uganda’s public universities, Dr. Oryema was among the beneficiaries of a PhD sponsorship through DANIDA’s ENRECA programme. This gave her the opportunity to spend more than 12 months of study time at the University of Copenhagen as part of her PhD programme.