For 2017 IDRC Research Award Recipient Sujaya Neupane, carrying out fieldwork in Nepal was literally coming home. Neupane spent time in the remote western villages of Thapagaun and Jhimpa — his childhood home — to find ways of improving science education by using digital learning tools.

The quality of education is vastly different in Nepal’s rural and urban areas, he explains, leading to poor educational outcomes in rural schools. But with the advent of inexpensive technology and free multimedia resources, science teaching materials can be accessed at low cost, he says. His goal was to determine how sustainable digital libraries could be set up in rural schools.

“One can’t hope to educate young people today without computers,” says Neupane. “I used a Raspberry-pi computer board as a server with embedded open-source learning tools, including those provided by Khan Academy and Wikipedia. Tablets were used to access these materials wirelessly from the server,” he explains. The Raspberry Pi is a low-cost credit card-sized single board computer designed specifically to promote education.

A team of teachers-cum-researchers in two secondary schools worked with Neupane to establish a protocol for using the digital learning materials.

Establishing an e-library in Jhimpa has opened up sources of knowledge to students who never had access to a library before, says Neupane. He and the on-site research team are now exploring how to evaluate the impact on students’ learning when the project ends in mid-2018.

Of his IDRC experience, Neupane says “being able to go back and live in my village and conduct research in schools there jointly with the teachers was the most memorable,” says Neupane. “Through this experience I am determined to work to develop an education system in rural Nepal as a volunteer and independent researcher.”

Climate change is a crucial issue in Trung Huu Nguyen’s home country of Vietnam, particularly its coastal cities. But, says the 2017 IDRC Research Award Recipient, most of the research on climate change perceptions focuses on rural farmers and overlooks urban residents. 

“Perceptions of climate change are important because they influence behaviours and response, and contribute to informed policy decisions,” says Nguyen. Working in the coastal cities of Hoi An and Nha Trang, he found that residents not only recognized impacts of climate change such as extreme heat and flooding, but had adapted in various ways, including diversifying their income-generation activities.

As Nguyen’s earlier experiences and education focused on rural communities and livelihoods, his fieldwork allowed him to gain better insight into the impacts of climate change on urban residents who depend on tourism. For them, it could mean a better and longer business season, he says.

To enable residents to adapt to future changes, he concluded that greater efforts should be made to inform them of predicted impacts and incorporate their concerns into urban and climate policies.

Working at IDRC was Nguyen’s “first professional experience abroad,” which allowed him to develop professional networks and hone his analytical skills, including in gender analysis. “It was an excellent opportunity to enhance my knowledge and skills for research on climate change impacts and adaptation strategies to reduce climate risk,” he says.

Nguyen also credits the research award with broadening his view of research for development. “Before IDRC, I worked mainly for development programs and projects insofar as they contributed to the goals of the projects, rather than global perspectives,” he says. At IDRC, he learned that programs can contribute to broader development goals.