Science - May 6, 2004

Wageningen opens office in Hanoi

A permanent representative of Wageningen UR set up office in Vietnam last week. Siebe van Wijk will represent the organisation from Hanoi, where he will provide back up to WUR projects in South-east Asia.

At present there are five research projects run by the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI) together with other institutes in Vietnam and the surrounding countries. Van Wijk’s main task will be to support these projects, all of which are aimed at developing and applying agricultural research to fit the needs of small-scale farmers and the environment in South-east Asia. The main activities are devoted to training personnel at universities, research institutes and other local organisations.

According to Van Wijk, Wageningen UR has a lot to offer in the way of knowledge and expertise that is relevant to agriculture in the region. He intends to devote some of his time to acquisition of new projects, and making Wageningen UR a more well-known name at local congresses, seminars and trade fairs. He will also work on setting up a network of Asian agricultural universities, that will write research proposals in collaboration with Wageningen UR. Van Wijk also sees opportunities for making Wageningen expertise more directly available to local businesses. The representative’s office will be based in the agricultural university in Hanoi, from where he will make regular visits not only the neighbouring countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and China, but also Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Joris Tielens