Ecological resilience denotes to the capability of an ecosystem to uphold main functions and processes in the face of perturbation or disturbance, either by resisting or adapting to change. Such perturbations and disturbances can contain stochastic actions such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, tracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species.
Moreover, climate variability and change threaten food security directly—for example, by reducing crop yields—and indirectly, by disrupting the systems and infrastructure people use to access food. Most studies of these issues have so far being focused on the impacts of climate variability or extreme climate events on food production. However, other aspects of food security such as access, utilization or stability have not received the same attention. As a result, our understanding of the underlying factors that make food systems and communities climate resilient (able to absorb climate shocks and stresses without experiencing emergency situations) is limited.
At the same time, disaster response strategies and policies targeting food security mainly focus on predicting and managing direct impacts of climate events on food production at the local level, and rarely contribute to building long-term resilience, especially among poor communities. One of the promising strategies to these dire problems is upgrading of education associated to agroecosystem based resilience.
The main challenge is to consolidate a variety of diverse activities in education quality improvement, such as the delivery of extensive educational programmes and capacity building, the continued knowledge sharing, etc. In order to progress on these efforts, it is necessary to build the capacity and an associated network of experts and institutions.
The education sector is vitally important for social and economic development of Sri Lanka (Region 6). In Asia, distinguish education in engineering and engineering trends is a key priority (Category A). This priority covers environmental protection technology, including solutions relevant to food security and climate change.
Therefore, the proposed project is aimed at development of joint curricula modules on building resilience in tropical agro ecosystem (BRITAE) in Sri Lankan universities in order to increase their capacity to continually modernize, enhance the quality and relevance of education of students to the global market needs and to ensure international cooperation in line with the above needs.
The specific objectives of the project are:
1) To understand the knowledge gaps in agroecosystem based resilience through a comprehensive survey framework by assessing the knowledge gaps, resources, capacities of current agroecosystem based resilience for joint curriculum development.
2) To develop a joint innovative and adaptive MSc curriculum on tropical agroecosystem based resilience aiming at food security and climate change impacts.
3) To develop a Smart Agroecosystem based Resilience Center for teaching, learning, research, and development.
4) To develop and implement an online student service platform by blending European practices in education (learning and teaching tools, methodologies and didactic approaches including learning outcomes and ICT-based practices) from participating EU universities to program country universities.
5) To implement Master's degree programme in Building Resilience in Tropical Agroecosystems
6) To prepare academic and administrative staff in the HEIs to undertake advanced, world-class and innovative, multi- and inter-disciplinary research that will contribute to increased ecological resilience to disasters by providing robust understanding on climate change, and DRR activities focused more on agroecosystems.
7) To increase international cooperation by partner HEIs on research programmes that tackle ways to increase societal resilience to disasters.
8) To reinforce educational and scientific networking among EU and PC universities in the BRITAE.
9) To disseminate the project progress, successes and outcomes as far as possible, and raising awareness across the field of HE about capacity building for research area- resilience building on agro-ecosystems.
Project partners: University of Colombo (Sri Lanka), University of Moratuwa (Sri Lanka), University of Sri Jayewardenepura (Sri Lanka), Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka), University of Huddersfield (UK), University of Lancashire (UK), Talinn University of Technology (Estonia).
