Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nantana Gajaseni,
Executive Director,
ASEAN University Network (AUN)

Since its official launch in 2003, AUN/SEED-Net has been one of the most successful cooperation between ASEAN and Japan. Remarkable progress and achievements have been made possible by great endeavour of strong partnership among our friends from ASEAN and Japan. Now, the successful journey shall continue to the Phase II of the project.

The detailed plan for the Phase II of the project has been officially endorsed through the MOU signing ceremony between the Member Institutions of AUN/SEED-Net on 22nd October 2008 in accordance with the finalised resolutions from the 13th Steering Committee Meeting and Year 2007 Annual Meeting in August 2007. Phase II will see more contributions from Member Institutions. This would enhance spirit of project ownership which in turn would reinforce sustainability of the project through the robust commitment from all stakeholders in cost-sharing scheme.

During Phase II, the project will vigorously keep up the success of Phase I programmes including Master’s Degree, Doctoral Degree Programmes, Doctoral Degree Sandwich Programme, Field-Wise Seminar as well as Dispatch Programme. The goal of promoting human resource development in engineering field will be heartily pursued and implemented through the exchange of students and academic staffs as well as building network among Member Institutions and Japanese Supporting Universities. Although the project might expect difficulties during Phase II as some challenges are discovered during the implementation period of Phase I, all partners, with utmost capacity and commendable effort, will work together through collaborative actions to address the challenges experienced and to strengthen the network and implementation of the projects and supporting activities.

In the search to expand our strong network, AUN Board of Trustees has set up the Task Force to consider and examine the potential of ASEAN University Network with regard to membership expansion. The Task Force has taken into account all perspectives, measured the risks and opportunities for the expansion and concluded that Thematic Networks based on specific disciplines shall be opportunities for non-AUN Member Universities to participate in AUN activities. The Thematic Networks shall draw the great success from AUN/SEED-Net as illustrious example. The AUN membership expansion shall then gradually open to new calibre universities in ASEAN with the aim to increase the membership to fifty universities in 2015 in respond to the integration of envisioned ASEAN Community. AUN has set its course of heading with this new direction for the next chapter of its long journey.

In capacity of the New Executive Director of ASEAN University Network, it is a great honour and pleasure to deliver a solid commitment to fully support and provide facilitation to the network’s endeavour in implementing and attaining successful progress, with its full capacity, on its activities and programmes of Phase II. Today, the network will continuously move forward through heartfelt cooperation of all stakeholders for its objectives. With our spirit of unity, I am certain that AUN/SEED-Net will grow stronger and become the integral part in contributing to the integration of the envisioned ASEAN community as well as consolidating relationship and networking with Japan which will lead us toward the bright future of mutual prosperity.

On July 30-31, 2009, the first Regional Conference in Biotechnology (RC BioT) was held in Manila by De La Salle University (DLSU). It was well-attended by over a hundred of participants, more than 20 of which were delegates from other universities, industries and government sector. On the first day, six plenary speakers gave inspiring lectures on different biofuel- and bioenergy-related topics. For parallel sessions, there were 32 technical papers submitted and presented plus six poster presentations. To encourage more submission and enhanced quality of posters, this year DLSU set up cash prizes for the best three posters. The first and the second prizes belonged to candidates from Mapua Institute of Technology, Philippines, and the third one went to a candidate from DLSU.

During the conference, the participants from the AUN/SEED-Net network confirmed the master plan for five-year topics and organizers of the regional conference in this area, while updating their biotechnological research work to the whole meeting so that other participants could initiate linkages to research of their interests. DLSU as the main Facilitating Institution (FI) would summarize all the research work and distribute the list to member institutions to encourage more cooperative research. Other four FIs also shared responsibilities: National University of Singapore would lead the group of biomaterials-related research; Chulalongkorn University would lead the biofuels group; while food engineering would involve Institute of Technology of Cambodia for upstream operations and Yangon Technological University for downstream operations.

The next conference will be hosted by Institute of Technology of Cambodia tentatively in February 2010, with the theme of “Food Security”.

The AUN/SEED-Net’s 2nd Regional Conference on Natural Resources & Materials (RC NRM) was organized by Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta on August 6-7, 2009, as one of the three conferences forming the International Conference on Earth Science & Technology. The other two joint conferences are the National Seminar on Earth Science Education and Research: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary Department of Geological Engineering Gadjah Mada University and the International Conference on Geology of the Southern Mountains of Java: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary Field Campus “Prof. Soeroso Notohadiprawiro”. The three conferences jointly brought together 250 participants from ASEAN and Europe. There were 29 participants from AUN/SEED-Net, four of which were professors from Japanese Supporting Universities, and one was a professor from Nanyang Technological University. Altogether, the participants presented as many as 82 papers.

The issue of external funding for research work in natural resources and materials area was in the limelight of the conference. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) as main FI of this area aroused researchers from different member institutions to join hands for inter-country research projects that contribute to ASEAN community and make joint proposals for research fund from the private sector of each country. Also, some research works in this regional conference could be further developed and upgraded for greater impacts on the society and community of ASEAN, in addition to a specific institution and country.

The third conference in this area will be hosted by USM in June 2010. To prepare for it, several participants were selected to be country representatives who would collect information and suggestions regarding the conference theme and scope of research papers from member institutions in the same country.

The second Regional Conference in Geological Engineering with the title “Earth Science International Conference 2009 (ESIC2009)” was organized in parallel with the Philippines-Taiwan Geosciences Cooperation Conference on August 27-28, 2009. Hosted by University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP), it was attended by 92 participants from member institutions, non-member universities, industries and the government sector. Four plenary keynotes by Japanese professors, 66 papers, and 11 posters were presented at the conference.

New and more specific collaborative research themes and topics were proposed by Gadjah Mada University (UGM), the field host, to give prospective candidates clearer understanding. Such themes and topics included petroleum geology exploration, coal bed methane, spatial and temporal relation between volcanism and hydrothermal system, mineral resources exploration, water resources, site selection for hazardous waste, and disaster mitigation-related topics e.g. earthquake, landslide, and geotechnical hazard mitigation.

Notably, UGM took the lead in setting up the network’s journal for the geological engineering field, the Journal of Southeast Asian Applied Geology, as a platform to publish research works from member institutions.

The next conference will be held in November 2010 in Phnom Penh by Institute of Technology of Cambodia.

Seven AUN/SEED-Net alumni enjoyed research support from the AUN/SEED-Net Project last year under the “Research Program for Alumni Members (RA)” introduced in the Project’s Phase 2. The program grants USD 2,000 to each alumnus working at Member Institutions who is in need for research support, with the purpose to encourage the alumni to continue research in collaboration with their former advisors and research fellows as well as promoting sustainability of the network.

The RA program is open for application from December to March every year, with the quota of 20 grants worth USD 2,000 each. The grant can partially support the research in terms of travel expenses for research activities and conferences in ASEAN and Japan, small equipment and spare parts, and some other items e.g. reference books, conference registration fees, and journal publication fees. After research completion, the research output should be reported at an AUN/SEED-Net regional conference in the related field. In this year, the program received a double number of applications from our alumni in various countries. Some alumni have used the grants to top up their existing research fund from other sources.

For 2010, the program will be announced in December 2009. If you are AUN/SEED-Net alumni member now being faculty staff at the Member Institutions, you may propose your research topic for the support, preferably the one in connection to collaborative research carried out during your study. Details of the program and application form can be found on the AUN/SEED-Net web site.