Research Projects
Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC) project
In 2006, Dr Vivienne Wee, Associate Director of SEARC, began a five-year applied research project to discover and implement strategies through which women living in Muslim countries and communities might change inequitable patterns of dominance. The independent project is funded by the UK Government’s Department for International Development, with SEARC as the lead research partner and administrator of the Research Programme Consortium implementing the project. The project fits squarely within SEARC’s ‘State-society interface’ research theme. For more details on the WEMC project,
click here.
Vietnam Project
As a major part of SEARC’s revitalization, the Centre has set up
a specific Viet Nam country project. Viet Nam’s rapid transition
from a planned and collectivized economy to more marketized dealings
– driven by national leadership that fully recognizes the need for
change – has consisted of serious reforms and poverty reduction,
while avoiding severe social dislocations. Viet Nam has thus been
hailed as Asia’s next ‘tiger’ economy, with powerful implications
for China and Hong Kong.
In early 2007, the then CityU president, H.K. Chang, mandated that
SEARC should reorient a substantial part of its research effort to
the study of contemporary Viet Nam. Funding was then made available
to SEARC for relevant research projects and staff support. Funding
was also made available to the Department of AIS, with which SEARC
is affiliated, in order recruit as many as three Viet Nam
specialists who would then join the Centre as core members. In
mid-2007, Dr Chan Yuk-wah, who researches Vietnamese diasporas,
relations with China, and Chinese minorities in Viet Nam, was
reappointed to AIS. In early 2008, Dr Jonathan London, a specialist
in Viet Nam’s contemporary politics and political economy, was
recruited to AIS from Nanyang University in Singapore. With the
funding made available to SEARC, Dr London organized a number of
workshops addressing Viet Nam issues during his first year. Click here for more information.Other projects
During its first years of operation, SEARC was able to fund a
range of small research projects. Owing to budgetary constraints,
this allocation of funding ceased in 2005. During 2007, however, new
funding was obtained through which to resume research projects at a
modest level. A few projects were thus funded during 2008. To date,
a total of HKD1,597,094.82 has been allocated to SEARC research
projects. All applications were reviewed by members of the Centre’s
Management Committee. Where funding exceeded HKD90,000, external
refereeing was sought. Most of the funding that has been obtained
during 2007, however, will be reserved for raising SEARC’s research
profile as a major centre for the study of contemporary Viet Nam.
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