A delegation from Nagoya University (NU), Japan visited the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) on 10 March 2025 to strengthen existing partnerships and explore new collaboration areas.
Led by Dr. Akira Yamauchi, Director of NU Asian Satellite Campus Institute (ASCI), the delegation also included Dr. Euan McKay, Designated Associate Professor and Strategy Lead of NU International Strategy Office; and Dr. Mary Jean Bulatao, Designated Associate Professor and Director, and Ms. Christine Viray, Project Assistant, both of NUASC-Philippines.
Dr. Glenn Gregorio, SEARCA Center Director, welcomed the visitors along with Dr. Nur Azura Binti Adam, Deputy Director for Programs; Dr. Maria Cristeta Cuaresma, Senior Program Head of the Education and Collective Learning Department; and Ms. Sharon Malaiba, Unit Head, and staff of the Partnerships Unit (PU).
In 2019–2020, NU and SEARCA launched a joint PhD research scholarship offered to Filipinos and Cambodians who wish to pursue their degrees at the NU satellite campus based at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and the satellite campus for bio-agricultural sciences based at the Royal University of Agriculture in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Both institutions expressed interest in crafting a new joint scholarship project, including MS and PhD.
"We are now in the final year of our 11th Five-Year Plan on Accelerating Transformation Through Agricultural Innovation and will be transitioning to the 12th Five-Year Development Plan (2025–2030) on Carbon WISE Agriculture: Winnable Innovation Solutions for the Environment. Our partnership is strategic since carbon neutrality is also in the heart of NU," Dr. Gregorio noted.
To expand collaboration, he proposed other areas where NU students and researchers can work with SEARCA. One is the Grants for Research towards Agricultural Innovative Solutions (GRAINS), which provides starter funds to researchers, scientists, inventors, and agripreneurs to scale up their technology or innovation models.
Another one is SEARCA's Consortium for Agricultural Development, Research, and Extension (CADRE), a regional network of high-caliber, like-minded institutions that will collaborate to deliver research and extension support on the issues and challenges faced by the Southeast Asian agriculture sector.
Dr. Gregorio also introduced the Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC), a network of universities from Asia, Canada, and Germany, along with its Erasmus+ project Postgraduate Micro-Credentials in Food Security and Climate Change (PMC FSCC). This initiative aims to offer learner-centered short-term courses through micro-credentials to address food security and climate change concerns. As a rejoinder, Dr. Mckay shared that Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is working to establish a strong micro-credential framework.