Higher Education

Through our Higher Education programme, our aim is to develop the next generation of Climate Change Adaptation professionals.

To achieve this we work in partnership with the Central Department for Environmental Science at Tribhuvan University; the Geography and Environmental Science department at University of Southampton; and our NGO partners EcoHimal Nepal and HICODEF.

Our programme enables Nepali and UK students to conduct research alongside academics and sector professionals in hard to reach and remote Himalayan communities.

The programme has two strands:

1. We enable Nepali and UK students to conduct detailed research into Climate Change Adaptation strategies and to gain experience alongside Development professionals from our partner NGOs;

2. We facilitate placements and apprenticeships for Nepali Agricultural studies students in our project locations.

Current work

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic it was not possible to send UK students to Nepal in 2020. As an adaptation to the ongoing situation, we instead enabled one University of Southampton student to conduct survey questionnaires and interviews with Nepali farmers and Development professionals remotely.

In addition, we have supported Carys Richards from University of St Andrews (UK) to convert her BSc dissertation on climate change adaptation narratives, into a report for publication via our website. Carys’ report ‘Framing Adaptation’ [PDF] builds on our ‘We Need To Talk About Adaptation’ work which she was involved in as a research assistant.

In 2021, we will work closely again with students from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, to enable dissertation research work on climate change adaptation.

We plan to resume field trip visits to Nepal for postgraduate students from University of Southampton in 2022.

Impacts

Education has been a key component of our work since we formed in 2008. Our approach has evolved over this time as we transferred our focus from research in the high Himalayan periglacial environments to the study of climate change adaptation in the foothills and Siwaliks.

1. CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION IN THE HIMALAYAN FOOTHILLS

In June and July 2018, two postgraduate students from the University of Southampton partnered up with postgraduate students from Tribhuvan University on a four week research and study tour. They worked together to study and research Climate Change Adaptation and Earthquake recovery in the badly effected district of Kavre, central Nepal. They were followed in June and July 2019, by four more students from Southampton and Tribhuvan who spent four weeks at Deusa Agro Forestry Resource Centre in Solukhumbu. The Glacier Trust has published Charlotte Thomas’ research findings, which along with the dissertations of the other Higher Education students are helping in ongoing programme design and delivery.

2. STUDENT PLACEMENTS

Since 2017, The Glacier Trust has been funding placements for Nepali students in Deurali. In 2019/20, nine students worked across three villages alongside our partner NGO, HICODEF. The students live and work in the community for six months and create a constant presence for HICODEF in the community where they help farmers to grow Climate Change resilient crops, prepare produce for market and record the economic impact of the project work. Successful completion of a placement is a requirement of their academic course and helps them to qualify as a Junior Technical Assistant (JTA) in sustainable agriculture. Many JTAs will go on to find work in Climate Change adaptation.

3. THE HIMALAYAN PERIGLACIAL SUMMER SCHOOL

In 2014 The Glacier Trust developed and ran the inaugural Himalayan Periglacial (HiPer) summer school held at the Tribhuvan University (TU) Kathmandu campus. This course was attended by ten Nepali postgraduate students and was delivered through a series of lectures, seminars and practicals, and taught by a combination of British post-graduate level students, lecturers from TU and researchers from the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

4. THE ‘HIPER’ FIELD TRIP

The top three students from the previous summer school were supported by TGT through the HiPer field trip to enable them to conduct research in the Periglacial environment. This benefits the students as they usually would not have been able to conduct such research otherwise. It also benefits the volunteer(s) we send out to teach on the summer school but also through gaining valuable field experience in the high Himalayas. And finally, TGT benefits by raising the awareness of the topic and by gaining primary research data from which future studies may be conducted and important findings made.

Get in touch

The Trust is always pleased to hear from any researchers in climate change adaptation, especially those interested in developing teaching and learning opportunities for Nepali and UK postgraduate students.