PRISMA Salon - „Water Security and Climate Change Adaptation: understanding the complexity of a global challenge”

DAAD funds global research center with partners in India and Thailand with 2.8 million Euros

© DAAD

The international community is still facing urgent global climate and environmental problems and their importance for sustainable development have been made even more clear by the ongoing pandemic. In this context, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Federal Foreign Office is supporting the establishment of global centers for the interdisciplinary networking of science, policy, economy and civil society for an effective transfer of research results into practice.

© André Terpe

The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering of TU Dresden and the RWTH Aachen were successful with a joint application. Together with partners from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Chennai, India), the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok, Thailand) and the Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources at the United Nations University (UNU-FLORES) in Dresden,  a “Global Water and Climate Adaptation Center” will be set up over the next five years. This ABCD Center (after the first letters of the 4 participating locations in 3 countries on 2 continents) will deal with climate adaptation measures in the Global South, especially in the water sector. A total of 2.8 million Euros is available for the Global Center from May 2021 to December 2025 (an extension for a further five years until 2030 with a budget of a further 3 million Euros is planned). Scientists will work closely together in three thematic clusters across disciplines:

• Water security, water resource management, safe water supply and water treatment
• Ecosystem Resilience and Nature-Based Adaptation Measures
• Transfer Strategies: Traditional knowledge, local economies and social acceptance

© André Lindner

The new Global Center not only promotes the mobility of young researchers and provides scholarships for master’s and doctoral students, but also develops a new joint international MSc.-course on the subject of “Water Security and Global Change”. In order to effectively counter the effects of the pandemic and to further optimize future exchange in research and teaching, great emphasis will be placed on the implementation and further development of digital formats. Furthermore, a network is to be established with three other Global Centers for Climate and Environment, and with the four Global Centers for Health and Pandemic Prevention, which have been established at the same time. The topic of water obviously plays a central role and it builds on the internationally renowned expertise and the resources available in the field of construction and the environment at the TU Dresden and the partners involved. For example, the existing international MSc-courses "Hydroscience and Engineering" and "Tropical Forestry"  at TU Dresden and the MSc.-course "Engineering Geohazards" at RWTH Aachen University are being integrated into the Centre's training portfolio. The exchange of students, doctoral candidates and lecturers is intended to create an effective network to stimulate further research projects, but also to pave the way for a successful transfer of knowledge and technology with the involvement of business, politics and civil society.

© M. DeFreese/CIMMYT

The establishment of the ABCD-Center will make a significant contribution to the further development of the TU Dresden as a global university for the 21st century and contribute to tackling global challenges with excellent research and innovative teaching.

The project is funded by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Foreign Office.

supported by:

© Federal Foreign Office

Information about the funding programme: https://www.daad.de/de/infos-services-fuer-hochschulen/weiterfuehrende-infos-zu-daad-foerderprogrammen/globale-zentren