Doing Research in Cambodia: Connecting the Dots, Spotting the Interlinks

In celebration of World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) and the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre (SEAC) collaborated to host an online panel discussion on "Doing Research in Cambodia: Connecting the Dots, Spotting the Interlinks". This was also part of CDRI's Connect #LeadTheWay initiative. 

Scientific evidence is crucial in any country development whether in informing policy formation, operation or monitoring and evaluation. While its importance is generally acknowledged and agreed on, the process to achieving it might differ from country to country. However, a common ground can still be achieved whether through dialogue, experience sharing or any other means. 

Purposes of the panel discussion: 

• To introduce research environment and infrastructure in Cambodia, especially for those who are new to working on Cambodia; 
• To showcase some good examples and lessons learnt from doing collaborative research in Cambodia; 
• To highlight and seek potential research collaborations, especially between CDRI and other institutions. 

A video recording of this event is available to watch here.

Speaker and Chair biographies

Dr Eng Netra: Dr Eng Netra has a long and distinguished career in development policy research specialising in governance and inclusive society, along with research management and policy influencing. Her appointment as Executive Director of CDRI caps a history of managerial and leadership positions over a 15-year research career at CDRI. She began her committed journey with the Institute in 2003 as a research associate in the Policy Oriented Decentralisation Research Program. From 2006-2010 and from 2015-18, Netra was research fellow and the head of the governance unit (now the Center for Governance and Inclusive Society). She oversaw many research studies that have produced original, high quality and locally owned research on Cambodia’s political and institutional transformation over the past twenty years, particularly on the critical sub-national governance reforms. Dr Eng is also active in a range of international and regional networks of governance and development scholars, and has published in international peer-reviewed journals and books. Prior to her appointment as the Executive Director, she served as Director of Research. Dr Eng has a PhD in political science from Monash University.  

Dr Nhim Tum: Dr Nhim Tum has been working as a research fellow in the Centre for Natural Resources and Environment (CNRE) since July 2021. He has extensive experience designing and leading various interdisciplinary research projects on water governance, climate change adaptation, WASH, food security, digital economy, and economics of natural resources management. He completed his doctorate in Environmental Economics and Natural Resources at Wageningen University (Netherlands) after graduating with an MSc. in Natural Resources and Environment from Michigan State University (United States), and an MSc. in Hydrology and Hydrogeology from Uppsala University (Sweden).

Dr Sabina Lawreniuk is Research Fellow in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. She works on the promotion of workers’ rights and women's rights in the global garment and footwear industry. Her ongoing projects explore women’s trade union representation (funded by a Leverhulme ECF 2017-2020), women’s health and safety (funded by a Nottingham Research Fellowship 2020-2023), and climate change impacts on workers (funded by the British Academy 2021-22) in Cambodia’s garment industry. Across this work, she retain a long-standing area focus on the political economy of Cambodia. Her first book (co-authored with Dr Laurie Parsons at Royal Holloway, University of London) entitled 'Going Nowhere Fast: Mobile Inequality in the Age of Translocality' was be published in 2020 with Oxford University Press. It brings together a decade of fieldwork spanning MA to PhD, exploring the uneven geographies of Cambodia's integration into the global economy.

Prof. Hyun Bang Shin (@urbancommune) is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and directs the LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. His research centres on the critical analysis of the political economy of speculative urbanisation, gentrification and displacement, urban spectacles, and urbanism with particular attention to Asian cities. His books include Planetary Gentrification (Polity, 2016), Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Exporting Urban Korea? Reconsidering the Korean Urban Development Experience (Routledge, 2021), and The Political Economy of Mega Projects in Asia: Globalization and Urban Transformation (Routledge, forthcoming). He is Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and is also a trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation.

About CDRI

CDRI works to produce independent, objective, high quality policy-relevant development research, to maximize its accessibility to policy makers, influencers and stakeholders and to have it affect policy in five interrelated areas that are key for Cambodia’s sustainable development which are agriculture and rural development, economics and trade, education and innovation, natural resource and environment, and governance and inclusive society.