Description
Established in 2011 and supported by a Luce Foundation grant in 2013, the Mekong Region Development Research Group (MRDRG) is an international consortium of social scientists and practitioners in policy and civil society. The members of the Group conduct academic, evaluation and policy research and training on transnational issues of health, migration, aging, education, civil society and governance, environment, and human development in the Mekong region. Headquartered at the University of Utah’s Asia Center, the MRDRG has formed a network of collaborative and mentoring relationships among scholars and institutions across the United States and Southeast Asia. The primary aim of the Group has been to equip junior researchers, particularly those from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, with the skills to conduct studies of relevance to their communities and the broader region, and to integrate them into larger scholarly networks to ensure that their voices and perspectives are heard.
Through MRDRG’s programming to date, over 130 researchers have participated in training workshops, scholarly exchanges and the creation of curriculum. The University of Utah requests support to build upon the foundation and relationships established. The next phase of MRDRG’s work would have four components: development of regional training hubs in Southeast Asia; creation of a young scholars program; capacity building in higher education and public administration in Myanmar; and continued development of Southeast Asian studies at the University of Utah.
According to principal investigator Kim Korinek, a sociologist and director of the University of Utah’s Asia Center, several Southeast Asian member institutions have emerged as leaders in specific areas of research methodology. Although their work has so far been primarily country-specific, they possess the potential to serve as regional training and resource hubs. These institutions would host methodology training workshops as a means to further their capacity as regional hubs, in the following areas: population mobility and community research (Institute of Population and Social Research and the Mahidol Migration Center, Mahidol University, Thailand); foundations for mixed methods research (Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation); ethnographic field methods in trans-border contexts (Chiang Mai University, Yunnan University and Guizhou University); and climate change, livelihoods and migration (Southern Institute for Social Sciences, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). Staff from these institutions would receive advanced methodological and pedagogical training through the MRDRG network prior to leading the workshops. Funds would, as well, support travel by junior scholars to the training hubs for further instruction in specific skills, and assist the hubs in strengthening their ability to share expertise and resources virtually. Korinek relates, “We know from the first phase of our project that these training workshops have yielded numerous new intellectual collaborations that…develop ‘lives of their own.’”
The young scholars program aims to pair senior mentors in the U.S. and Thailand with junior researchers from the Mekong region and American graduate students with Mekong-based research interests. Fourteen recipients (seven per cohort) would take part in a two-year program providing an interactive online course, meetings in Bangkok for methods training and presentation of research, and tutorials in academic writing. The initiative would also support each participant’s visit to a mentor, other regional scholar or one of the training hubs.
In Myanmar, the Group proposes to work with St. Aloysius Gonzaga Institute in Shan State building capacity in the higher education sector, specifically in higher education administration, social work education, community-based participatory research methods, and library and information science. This project would entail collaboration with the College of Social Work at the University of Utah and Ateneo de Davao University in The Philippines. A second project on curriculum development and pedagogy in public administration, particularly programs suitable for civil servants and NGO professionals, would engage the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Utah with the University of Yangon.
With our prior grant and cost share from the Asia Center, the University of Utah added three years of Vietnamese language instruction and a third year of Khmer to its curriculum. Under the current proposal, the university would continue to match our grant for this purpose, as it aims to develop a general track in Southeast Asian studies. Luce Foundation funds would also support internships for the university’s undergraduate and graduate students to work with MRDRG research teams in the Mekong region.
That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a four-year grant of $465,000 to the University of Utah in continued support for the Mekong Region Development Research Group.
