A shared interest in informing policy and governance among the visiting PhD students.

Kanin Laopirun develops his research around the plastic circular economy in Thailand. He focuses on exploring the assessment framework to measure how plastic products and packaging are produced and used by industries, consumers and trade, as well as managed and recycled. It aims at informing the circular economy policy measures to reduce and prevent plastic waste leakage into the environment.

“The public sector needs some guidance, for example, a tool to monitor and assess the implementation of policies. My assessment framework tries to see through the links within the national economic system, as well as its players – consumers, the industrial sector and international trade – to the plastic and waste generation question.

 I foresee that my research could potentially provide a foundation to act as the anchor for policy formulation and coordination in Thailand.”

– Kanin Laopirun, PhD candidate in Natural Resources Management at Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand and visiting student at Lund University

Oluwatunmise Paimo is particularly passionate about security issues, focusing on analyzing discourses around terrorism and at how digital technology can counteract it. She believes exploring some theories in-depth can help to better explain security issues connected to the environment. For instance, how the Lake Chad Basin in Niger, Chad and Cameroon are often a propellant of terrorism in Nigeria, and how the problem is exacerbated by climate change in this region. Her research seeks to look at how some of these challenges have been exacerbated in undeveloped countries, where the financial wherewithal to counter these issues is probably not working.

”I have seen within my short period in the program that most of the crises in developing or undeveloped countries have in one way or the other been linked to climate change. The challenge is that problematizing climate change around security issues is not given enough emphasis in these areas.”

– Oluwatunmise Paimo, PhD candidate in International Relations, at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria and visiting student at Stockholm University.

Pável Aguilar’s research is focused on the study of the impact that transnational extractive agriculture products on food security and food sovereignty within the Peruvian northern coast. In particular, his interests lay in understanding how the liberalization policies implemented from 1990 in Peru have built private governance on natural resources with detrimental effects on vulnerable populations and fragile environments.

“I’m convinced that research is absolutely important for improving public policies, preventive actions and state-level initiatives for regulating the access and exploitation of natural resources. In this sense, my work highlights important territorial transformations where the global supply chains deteriorate the environment and the local livelihoods. Therefore, generating evidence could help to take measures of remediation and design better public policies.”

– Pável Aguilar, PhD candidate in Sociology at the Catholic University of Peru and Free University of Berlin in Germany, with the support of trAndeS Programme, and visiting student at Stockholm University.