Waste-free-Climate - Alumni Special Projects 2022-23 of the DAAD

Climate Change and the Circular Economy: Opportunities and Challenges for Research, Education, and International Cooperation

Project Description:

With the aim of fostering sustainable international relations, the DAAD supports specialized alumni projects for alumni of German higher education institutions in developing countries, in which German universities organize projects for former scholarship recipients who have previously spent at least three months in Germany.

In the “Waste-free-Climate” workshop, alumni from Myanmar, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam the opportunity to present their own projects and work on solutions together with researchers specializing in waste management and the circular economy from TU Dresden and the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

To this end, four online workshops will take place in April, July, and October 2022, and January 2023, during which external experts, among others, will give presentations on topics related to the alumni’s projects, and a strategy paper will be drafted by the entire group. The strategy paper will summarize the current obstacles and challenges facing waste management in the Mekong region and demonstrate how addressing these issues will benefit people, the economy, the environment, and the climate. Since the alumni’s individual projects serve as the starting point for the entire workshop, the position paper will also help them communicate their current needs to policymakers, which in turn will increase the projects’ likelihood of success by improving the framework conditions.

In 2022, another online meeting will take place, during which the project team will meet with two additional alumni special projects from the same program to exchange information and discuss the progress of the individual workshops.

In the spring of 2023, the project team and the alumni will meet in Ho Chi Minh City for a week-long workshop to refine the position paper by gaining a firsthand understanding of the local situation and engaging with experts and citizens. Afterward, everyone will participate together in the Mekong River Summit Conference in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

For more information on the workshop content, please visit the DAAD website.

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The special alumni project as part of the 4th Mekong River Commission is being carried out by three German universities, each of which will select 15 German alumni and offer workshops (online and in person) on various topics. In addition to the workshop described above by TU Dresden, there are two further calls for applications from the University of Siegen and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (TH Köln). If you are interested in participating in this special alumni project, we recommend that you also review the calls for applications for the other two projects and decide which of the topics covered best align with your professional background, interests, or current work project.