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Consumers and the broader public have been more and more interested in what organic and sustainable agriculture can offer, namely, pesticide-free food and reduced environmental impact. The overuse of pesticides as a strategy to prevent disease has raised concerns with farmers and scientists, too, as resistant diseases are on the rise.

Researcher Abdel García from Humboldt Center, one of Nicaragua’s most renowned environmental institutions, is passionate about involving local population in climate change adaptation research. “In the near future Nicaragua as a country where people live, might stop existing,” he fears

PhD-student from Pakistan, Sajid Shokat, collaborate with University of Copenhagen and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico on adapting wheat to climate changes. According to him, his stay in Denmark will make a difference in his home country for both farmers and students.

The fourth seminar in the DDRN series on South-North research cooperation is co-organised with Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI). It takes place at the Copenhagen campus of Aaalborg University. The key note presentation is by Idongesit Williams, Post Doc at CMI. Also, faculty of Department of Communication & Psychology and Department of Culture and Global Studies will present their experiences.

The renowned Nicaraguan sociology researcher Elvira Cuadra has been working from her exile in Costa Rica since December 2018. She is one out of at least 55.000 people from Nicaragua who has escaped for political asylum in the neighboring country.

DDRN dialogue with researchers during the Danish Science Festival on 25 April 2019, 16.30-18.30 at Studiestræde 6, Copenhagen. The dialogue is in Danish and entitled 'Try this at home! Sustainable home, food and transport' Discuss with three senior researchers at Danish universities and four PhD student from China, Pakistan and Bolivia currently studying in Denmark.

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.