NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

Research collaboration
The North-South Centre has set solid foundations for a successful implementation of
its strategy, which is very explicit about the intended future research portfolio.
The conceptual approach “research for development” and the overall goal “sustainable
development for human well-being” outlined in the strategy have permeated the
minds of our members and are reflected in all our activities.
In the future, the North-South Centre will pursue four thematic
areas: “Food security”, “Natural resource management”,
“Urban and rural transformation”, and “Technology
and infrastructure” (see p. 8). Already today, many research
activities of our members feed the new portfolio.
The topics of “Food security” and “Natural resource management”
can build on long-standing expertise of the
North-South Centre, both at the level of its individual
members and at the level of programme management.
The project reports of the research programme “Livestock
research in support of poor people” described on the next
pages highlight the interdisciplinary collaboration among
ETH scientists, in particular between the groups of food
and nutrition, agriculture, and environmental sciences. The
fellowship programme RFPP (see p. 64) with its numerous
doctoral and post-doc projects covers both “Food security”
and “Natural resource management”.
In the case of “Urban and rural transformation”, we see
great potential in developing this thematic area together
with the relevant ETH scientists who have expressed their
interest in the topic. The North-South Centre can help to
channel the wealth of expertise at the ETH Zurich into
research partnerships with developing countries and
emerging economies. In this year’s annual report, we will
already shed light on activities conducted in 2009 (see p. 48).
“Technology and infrastructure” will be gradually explored
as another new field within the profile of the North-South
Centre. The topic fits well to the comparative advantage of a
technical university, and is highly relevant for development.
In 2009, we started to approach new ETH departments by
organising the Annual Conference together with the Energy
Science Center. Furthermore, in a workshop with the Volkswagen
Foundation we discussed potential research activities
in engineering for development (see p. 106).
Kyrgyzstan
Mongolia
Syria
China
Iran Pakistan
Mexico
Nepal
Kuba
India Bangladesh
Honduras Nicaragua
Mali
Nigeria
Thailand Vietnam
Costa Rica Venezuela Burkina Faso
Ethiopia
Panama
Côte d’Ivoire Cameroon
Phillipines
Somalia Sri Lanka
Colombia
Benin
Malaysia
Uganda Kenya
Equador
DR Congo Rwanda Seychelles
Indonesia
Peru
Brazil
Tanzania
Zambia
Bolivia
Zimbabwe
Madagascar
Botswana Mozambique
South Africa
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Research collaboration
Geographic distribution of research projects
conducted by members of the North-South Centre