On 04 March 2021, the first Build4People Curriculum Development Summit Meeting took place, see agenda. The main aim of this event was to identify needs and demands in terms of curriculum development from the side of the Cambodian research partners.
It was organized by the Build4People Work Package #7 “Coordination, Communication and Dissemination” with input support from Build4People Work Package #4 “Urban Green” and from representatives of Royal University of Phnom Penh, Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia and of Royal University of Agriculture.
Greetings words were provided by the Build4People consortium representative Dr Michael Waibel, Dr Vanny Sok, Vice-Rector of Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Dr Justin Op, Vice-President of Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia (PUC) and Stefan Hase-Bergen, Director of Regional Office of German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Hanoi.
Afterwards, Dr Michael Waibel, Build4People consortium leader, presented about the capacity development approaches of the Build4People project in regard of the upcoming Research and Development phase. Then, Lena Radmer, student assistant at Hamburg University, introduced an analysis of 23 existing master courses in the field of our research worldwide and the introduction of a case study example of a full online course from Lund University, Sweden.
This was followed the presentation of good practice examples of curriculum development collaboration from SE Asia by Prof Dr Jan Peter Mund, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development and leader of Build4People Work Package #4 “Urban Green”.
After that, representatives of the local research partners introduced about their specific curriculum development activities and identified opportunities to cooperate in this field with the Build4People project. At first, there were 3 inputs from Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP): Dr Seak Sophat introduced about the ongoing master course “Master in Climate Change” and then Bunleng Se introduced about the master course “Geography” which is currently under preparation. Finally, Dr Op Vanna, research partner of Build4People Work Package #1 “Behaviour Change”, introduced about the efforts of the Department of Psychology to integrate elements of environmental psychology into the existing Bachelor curriculum and to develop a new master course focussing on environmental psychology at RUPP. Then, Dr Tep Makathy, Dean of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia, introduced his idea to create a new master course with the working title “Sustainable Urban Transformation Planning, SUTP”. Finally, Dr. Hor Sanara, Faculty of Land Management and Land Administration at Royal University of Agriculture presented the demands and needs of his school in terms of capacity development.
This was followed by a lively discussion how to proceed the joint efforts in terms of capacity development. Among others, it was decided to form working groups related to each master course and to held meetings on a regular basis in the future.
All slides presented during the Build4People Curriculum Development Summit can be downloaded here (pdf-file, 2,8 MB).
An extensive event documentation with many screenshots has been published at the event page of the Build4People website.