Vietnamese wins ASEANO sponsorship for plastic pollution research
Nguyen Thi Trang, a Vietnamese predoctoral fellow at the Asian Institute of Technology and three other researchers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand have received US$30,000 sponsorship from a research grant competition of the ASEAN-Norwegian Cooperation Project on Local Capacity Building for Reducing Plastic Pollution in ASEAN.
Trang received US$7,500 grant for her doctoral research on the impact of plastic litter on the seagrass communities in Phu Quoc Marine Protected Area in Vietnam. She will conduct her research over a three-month period.
At the awarding ceremony on March 9, Norwegian Ambassador to ASEAN Morten Hoglund underlined Norway’s strong commitment to cleaning oceans and rivers, adding that it has been one of the country’s strongest priorities globally over the past few years.
ASEANO is part of the Norwegian-ASEAN Regional Integration Programme (NARIP). The three-year programme mainly focuses on capacity and knowledge development in tackling plastic pollution in the ASEAN region.
ASEANO aims to illuminate driving forces behind plastic pollution and evaluate the implications of plastic pollution for the economy, development, environment, and human well-being.
Ratnawati, research manager of Indonesia’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) said that the objective of the ASEANO research grant competition is to provide an opportunity for transfer of knowledge and know-how among academics in ASEAN member countries and find the solution to plastic pollution by evidence-based policy.
The competition received 181 research proposals from the entire ASEAN region.
