UPCOMING EVENT: Toward’s Thailand’s Green Transformation: Research on Emerging Challenges and Opportunities

Please register here.

Public Seminar (Hybrid event)  

Toward’s Thailand’s Green Transformation:  

Research on Emerging Challenges and Opportunities 

29 July 2025: 10:00 – 15:00  

Alumni Meeting Room, 12th Floor, Kasem Udyanin Building  

(Faculty of Political Science Building 3), Chulalongkorn University 

Co-organized by: Center for Social Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University; Climate Finance Network Thailand; Local Alike; Sustainable Agriculture Foundation Thailand; Sustainable Development Foundation; Towards Organic Asia

Attaining green transformation is the challenge that will define the 21st Century. Ambitious vision and leadership are needed that can bring together diverse actors around pathways that are sustainable, peaceful, and just. While a global challenge, achieving green transformation in practice requires action in innumerable localities that is democratized, accountable and inclusive. Actionable knowledge is needed to guide green transformation that is produced inclusively involving those directly affected by sustainability challenges.  

The ‘Just Futures Mekong Fellowship Program’ (JFMFP) is a capacity strengthening and research program launched in July 2024 that supports young individuals to address pressing environmental and social challenges through research, collaboration, and regional dialogue. JFMFP has been undertaken as a partnership between the Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Chulalongkorn University and five organizations in Thailand who co-host this public seminar. The themes of the fellowship program have encompassed: organic farming and agroecology; coastal community resource governance; community based tourism; and climate change, including farmer climate adaptation and climate finance. 

At the heart of the JFMFP is the co-creation of knowledge and solutions through collaborative research. At this public seminar, the key insights of these research projects and their implications for policy and practice will be shared by the JFMFP fellows, their host organization partners and other collaborators. Alongside the presentations, poster presentations and a photograph exhibition will detail the research.  

The meeting will be held in English. Simultaneous translation will be available between Thai and English. 

Please register here.

Agenda (draft)

Time	Item
9:00 – 10:00	Registration / Exhibition walk
10:00 – 10:15	Welcome remarks Carl Middleton, Director, Center for Social Development Studies
Session 1: Community-led transformations in food and climate adaptation
10:15 – 10:45	“Walking Alongside Communities: Supporting Community-led Adaptation Resilience beyond Climate Change in Northern Thailand‘s Highlands” Introduction to community role-play game • Presenter: Shao Meng (JFMFP) “From Trust to Recognition: Strengthening a Participatory and Community-grounded Seed System in Thailand” • Presenter: Zhou Yuting (JFMFP)
10:45 – 11:15	Commentary and Q&A: • Dr. Chaya Vaddhanaphuti, Chiang Mai University • Kingkorn Narintarakul Na Ayutdhaya Moderator: Narumon Paiboonsittikun (TOA)
Session 2: Electric Vehicles and Thailand’s Green Transformation
11:15 – 12:15	Opening Presentation: “Can Chinese EV Investment contribute to Thailand’s Green Transformation?” • Presenter: Yuan Ye (JFMFP) Panel discussion: • Sarinee Achavanuntakul, CFNT • Jinmei Liu, Friends of Nature • Somnuck Jongmeewasin, EEC WATCH Moderator: Yu Yin
12:15 – 13:00	Lunch
Session 3: Local development – Challenges, Opportunities and Ways Forward
13:00 – 13:30	“Connecting Thailand’s Community-based Tourism to Chinese Travelers: Local Voices, Emerging Trends, and Collaboration” • Presenter: Xueying Mai (JFMFP) “Camera, Community, and the Act of Claiming: Visual Participation and Everyday Struggles for the Right to Stay in Coastal Thailand” • Presenter: Jiao Xiaofang (JFMFP) Film showing
13:30 – 14:00	Commentary and Q&A: • Wanvipa Phanumat (Local Alike) • Dr. Peerada Phumisawat, (Thailand National Human Rights Commission) Moderator: t.b.c
Session 4: Synthesis: Towards green transformation through co-produced knowledge
14:00 – 15:00	Panelists: • Sarinee Achavanuntakul, Climate Finance Network Thailand • Tianjie Ma, Advisor to JFMFP • Supa Yaimuang, Sustainable Agriculture Foundation Thailand • Ravadee Prasertcharoensuk, Sustainable Development Foundation • Kittipon Phummisuttikul, Towards Organic Asia • Wanvipa Phanumat, Local Alike Q&A Moderator: Carl Middleton
Session 5: Concluding Remarks
15:00 – 15:15	Professor Surichai Wun'gaeo, Chulalongkorn University

UPCOMING EVENT: Launch of UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy [28 March 2023]

Launch of the Chulalongkorn University UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy

9:00-11:45, 28 March 2023  

Online and in-person at Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Co-organized by Chulalongkorn University UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy; Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University; Office of International Affairs and Global Network, Chulalongkorn University; and Japan Society for International Development (JASID)

Please register to join the event here.

Resource governance is at the heart of sustainable development. A range of interconnected and complex contemporary resource governance challenges exist including on water, food, energy and climate change. Inclusive, transparent and accountable resource governance contributes towards attaining human security, building peace, sustaining healthy ecosystems, and ensuring social and ecological justice. Furthermore, in the age of the Anthropocene resource governance must also account for a broader ethics of human-nature relations and the concerns of more-than-human things.

Within resource governance, the imaginaries of the future act on the possiblities of the present, including in terms of whose voices are heard in debates articulating desirable or undesirable futures. Futures literacy is a capability and a skill that enables a better understanding and anticipation of the role that the future plays in society. It fosters agility of the mind, allowing uncertainty and complexity to be embraced. Being futures literate empowers people to use the futures to innovate the present, leading to creative solutions and policy shifts.

To accelerate its core founding mission to serve the public, Chulalongkorn University is pleased to launch the Chulalongkorn University UNESCO Chair on Resource Governance and Futures Literacy, which aims to respond to resource governance priorities through partnerships. The Chair aspires to catalyze thought leadership and activities that result in clear impacts in policy and on-the-ground outcomes. Over the coming five years, the Chair will establish a hub of researchers, policy makers, graduate students and other societal actors to catalyze inclusive and sustainable governance of resources through futures literacy-focused research, dialogue and capacity strengthening. We will proactively and constructively engage towards the inclusive, equitable and sustainable resolution of resource governance challenges emphasizing the identification of transformative pathways through building futures literacy.

Please download the program as a pdf here.

For enquiries, please contact Dr. Carl Middleton (Carl.Chulalongkorn@gmail.com).

UPCOMING EVENT: Transdisciplinarity for Global Sustainable Development [24 January 2023]

Transdisciplinarity for Global Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Research and Teaching

Transdisciplinarity for Global Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Research and Teaching

24 January 2023, Smart Classroom, 7th Floor, Faculty of Political Science,

Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand and online 

Co-organized by M.A. and Ph.D. Program in International Development Studies (MAIDS-GRID) and Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University; School for Cross-faculty Studies, The University of Warwick; and Chulalongkorn University UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy

Please register to join the event here.

Globally and in Southeast Asia there has been a growing interest in transdisciplinary approaches to understand and act on urgent global sustainability challenges. These have ranged from urban planning and design, to rethinking education, to responding to climate change. Transdisciplinary approaches are intended to catalyze the collaboration of researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds together with community representatives and practitioners who may include state agencies, civil society organizations, and private sector. When undertaken well, it offers the possibility of new forms of accountability between academic researchers and society, given that core to transdisciplinarity is building trusted relationships and undertaking knowledge co-production.  

Transdisciplinary approaches draw on new principles for organizing and conducting research and teaching. Whilst experience on transdisciplinary approaches is growing, there are challenges to undertaking transdisciplinary approaches, ranging from how to effectively build an interdisciplinary academic research team and foster trusted working relationships with collaborators, to how to successfully co-design and implement research projects, and how to ensure that knowledge is actionable and simultaneously solves societal challenges whilst also transferring gained knowledge to other contexts. How universities can teach transdisciplinary approaches and be organized to promote and facilitate it is also an emerging question.

The objective of this seminar is to share experience and identify promising approaches to strengthen transdisciplinary research and teaching to respond to complex global sustainable development challenges.

Speakers

Opening remarks:

• Dr. Bhanubhatra Jittiang, Assistant Dean for International Affairs and Director of the M.A. and Ph.D. Program in International Development Studies (MAIDS-GRID)

Speakers:

• Dr. Naruemon Thabchumpon, Associate Professor and Director of Asian Research Center for Migration (ARCM), Chulalongkorn University

• Dr. Marta Guerriero, Associate Professor and Head of International Partnerships, Global Sustainable Development, School for Cross-faculty Studies, The University of Warwick

• Dr. Carl Middleton, Assistant Professor and Director of Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

Chair:

• Dr. Jessica Savage-Wilkes, Associate Professor, Global Sustainable Development, School for Cross-faculty Studies, The University of Warwick

Concluding remarks:

• Dr. Stephanie Panichelli, Professor and Head of School, School for Cross-faculty Studies, The University of Warwick

For enquiries, please contact Dr. Carl Middleton.

UPCOMING EVENT: CU Graduate Student Seminar Series 'The Globalization of Environmental Law' [Bangkok, 30 July 2019]

The Globalization of Environmental Law: A Seminar and Discussion with Professor Tseming Yang

Tuesday 30 July 2019, 10.00 - 11.30 at Mekong Room, Stockholm Environment Institute, 10th Floor, Kasem Utthayanin Building (อาคารเกษม อุทยานิน), Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (guide to the venue here)

Tseming Yang is a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. He is the former Deputy General Counsel of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), appointed by President Barack Obama, and from 2007-10, he led the establishment of the US-China Partnership for Environmental Law, a USAID and State Department-funded initiative to build China’s institutional capacity in environmental law and governance. Professor Yang's research and practice focus on advancing understanding of the structure and role of the law with respect to the environment, as well as how to ensure that effective implementation will contribute to the achievement of justice and sustainability. He has an expertise in environmental law in international treaties, and in the law and governance systems of other countries.

Discussants:

• Dr. Naporn Popattanachai, Assistant Dean for Administration and Director of the Centre for Natural Resources and Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, Thammasat University

• May Thazin Aung, Research Associate, Stockholm Environment Institute

Moderator: Sara K. Phillips, PhD Candidate, GRID Program, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University and Doctoral Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute

To register for this event, please send and e-mail to CU Graduate Student Seminar Series at cugradseminar@gmail.com.

UPCOMING EVENT: "Why Money and Disequilibrium Matter to Economics" [Bangkok, 14 March 2019]

Public Lecture by Professor Steve Keen

Honorary Professor, University College London Institute for Strategy, Resilience & Security (UCL ISRS) Distinguished Research Fellow, Crowdfunded Professor of Economics on Patreon

Thursday 14 March 2018, 10.00 - 12.00 at Alumni Meeting Room, 12th Floor, Kasem Utthayanin Building (อาคารเกษม อุทยานิน), Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (guide to the venue here)

Economist (or as he prefers, anti-economist) Steve Keen joins us to unveil the role of money in economics and how the idea of equilibrium leads us astray. He will also explain what it means to have become the crowdfunded Professor of Economics, and why most of the things many people, within and outside academia, believe about the world of economics, finance and business are simply wrong.

Awarded the Revere Prize for most accurately forecasting the Global Financial Crisis, Professor Keen remains the leading global expert on the role of money, finance and debt in the modern world, from Australia’s property bubble, through to the list of countries he describes as the Walking Dead of Debt.

He is currently working on his 'magnum opus', writing articles and publishing podcasts, including breakthrough work on the role of energy use in economic development, while also trying to debunk financial myths in the comic book format of ‘e-CON-comics’.

Discussants:

• Emeritus Professor Dr. Suthiphand Chirathivat , Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University

The event will start at 10 am, and the registration is open from 09.30 am.

For more information and to RSVP, please send an e-mail to communications.csds@gmail.com.