New UVic IDRC Office will Stengthen Research Focus on Asia

Dr. Stephen Tyler, a senior regional program officer from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Asia regional office in Singapore has arrived at the University of Victoria to run an IDRC office devoted to supporting applied research on development issues in Asia. At UVic, Tyler will work with Canadian and Asian research institutions to develop, fund and monitor applied research projects in priority areas of IDRC support.

"The main reason IDRC moved me here is to help strengthen connections between Canada and Asia in key areas of development research," says Tyler. "The resources to support development research in Asia will increasingly come from Asia. To remain relevant to Asia, Canadian researchers will have to provide leading-edge expertise, knowledge brokering, and other valued collaborative services, not just funds. They will have to stay abreast of the dynamic development context in Asia."

According to Tyler, UVic was chosen as the site because "UVic offers a core of high-quality and enthusiastic Asia-oriented researchers and a supportive, cost-effective base for IDRC to reach other Canadian and Asian institutions."

Tyler will hold an adjunct appointment with the Faculty of Graduate Studies and will be an Associate of UVic's Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI). His appointment, which began on Aug. 1, was the culmination of negotiations between IDRC and the University over the past year.

A native of Calgary, Tyler holds a PhD in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BSc in geography from Trent University. He has studied resource and development economics and worked on energy resource conservation and policy for the government of Alberta for seven years. He has also consulted for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, worked as a researcher with the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California and has lived in Asia for the past seven years. His publications deal mainly with energy, urbanization and development issues.

At UVic, recent IDRC grant recipients include Dr. Michael M'Gonigle (Law --Eco-Research Chair in Environmental Law and Policy) for the Community Forest Network Project in Southeast Asia and Dr. Philip Cook (Child and Youth Care) for a project to identify local resources to enhance community care for AIDS orphans in Malawi.

IDRC is a federally-supported independent agency set up more than 25 years ago to build scientific capability in less-developed countries through support for applied research on issues related to development. IDRC is headquartered in Ottawa but has six regional offices in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Many projects involve Canadian researchers as collaborating partners to the Third World institutions who receive the research grants.

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