Partnerships between the University of Namur and Philippine Universities

The collaboration between scientists from the University of Namur and several institutions in the Philippines has been continuously developing and expanding its scope in the last four decades.

The scientific collaboration between the University of Namur and Philippine Universities goes back to 1992, when Françoise Orban, professor at the Department of Geography of UNamur and the Director of the Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) of the Jesuit Ateneo de Manila University met and decided to join their expertises.

Françoise Orban's previous work in collaboration with the Department of Mathematics of UNamur on satellite image classification was essential to design an algorithm ESSC was looking for in order to determine forest cover from satellite images in order to integrate the results into a Participatory Geographic Information System (SIGP) cartographic tool.

Thanks to this joint collaboration, the partners were able to contribute to the defence of the property rights of local indigenous people, rights that are being violated by large international companies causing massive deforestation.

Various other research projects followed this first one, in collaboration not only with other Philippine Universities, but also with local partners and other Belgian and international universities.

Most of the projects encompass important issues for the Philippines and are listed according to the main research area.

These collaborations have been possible thanks to various types of funding: governmental and non-governmental for bilateral collaborations, European funds to foster multilateral collaborations and institutional funding as well.

ARES-CCD projects	European projects
FNRS project	Institutional projects
International cooperation	Scientific cooperation

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