Action Research Project Completed in Nepal

Nepal Engineering College (nec) along with two other technical universities from South Asia, i.e. Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture (PGIA) and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) has been working as a research consortium for the past 19 years with the vision of creating a cohort of interdisciplinary water professionals in South Asia who share a deep understanding of the complex scientific and societal issues surrounding water resource management. Currently, the consortium is involved in an action research project, "Gendering Water and Climate Science in South Asia", funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) that seeks to improve the integration of gender analysis and larger interdisciplinary research and practice in Water and Climate Science (WCS) in South Asia by refining pedagogical practices and capacity building of fellows towards their postgraduate and doctoral research. The Project has selected seven SAWA fellows for the fellowship from 2022 batch of students to pursue M.Sc. Interdisciplinary Water Resource Management (iWRM) program at nec. Similarly, there are fellows from the other mentioned universities. As a project inherent component, a regional capacity building training programme was conducted for the first batch of SAWAs in Kathmandu from February 4-8, 2024.

The programme aimed to provide insight into research and development, provide a comprehensive understanding of qualitative research methodologies, and equip participants with the necessary skills to conduct meaningful and rigorous qualitative research. The first batch of SAWA fellows from partner institutions participated. Th program included two days in house lectures from the prominent interdisciplinary water researchers and Professors from the Netherlands, and India. In addition, three days field works was scheduled in Dhulikhel Municipality where the students implemented their inhouse learning on field research tools for the data collection and analysis.