Workshop of the SUSADICA doctoral programme brings together PhD students and their supervisors

25 February 2020 - On 18-19 February 2020, team members co-organised a workshop of the Structured Doctoral Programme on Sustainable Agricultural Development in Central Asia (SUSADICA) in Halle (Saale) at the Leibniz-Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).

The workshop brought together ten PhD students of the doctoral programme, their supervisors and project coordinators with an objective of presenting and discussing the research progress, identifying synergies among individual PhD projects, and discussing field work plans and training activities in the region. The workshop was launched by IAMO Director Prof. Thomas Herzfeld, SUSADICA project leader Prof. Martin Petrick, a representative of Volkswagen Foundation, Dr. Matthias Nöllenburg, and a representative of the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers (TIIAME), Prof. Akmal Karimov. During the two days, the PhD students presented their research projects and discussed them with other doctoral students and supervisors.

The SUSADICA doctoral programme is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the Uzbek Ministries of Higher Education and Innovative Development. It aims at conducting cutting edge research at international standards on the topics of regional and international relevance, strengthening graduate education in the field of agricultural development in Central Asia and contributing to the academic environment in TIIAME. Ten doctoral students funded by the programme spend half of each project year in Germany at three partner institutions (JLU, IAMO, and Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg) and the other half at TIIAME in Uzbekistan. The PhD research topics cover the issues of farm restructuring, agricultural innovation and technology, crop diversification, agricultural policy, environmental change and water governance in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.