Inauguration of CARE - 2013

CARE: A specialised water research centre in Vietnam

The Centre Asiatique de Recherche sur l’Eau (Asian centre for water research) was inaugurated on 19 November 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, at the second conference of the RESCIF presidents. The Network of Excellence in Engineering Sciences of the French-speaking Community (RESCIF) was created in 2010 and implements innovative targeted and long-lasting cooperation between 14 technological universities with the goal of addressing some of the major challenges of emerging and developing countries.
Brigitte Plateau, President of the Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP) attended the event along with the President of the Vietnam National University and the chancellor of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, as well as representatives from most of the member institutions of RESCIF* to inaugurate this research centre that was created at the initiative of Grenoble INP, the Institute for Research and Development (IRD), the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the École Polytechnique de Montréal, and the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology.
"CARE was created with the goal of rising to meet the challenge that should concern all of us as inhabitants of this planet: rational and sustainable management of water resources, in particular the Mekong Delta”, she stated in her speech. “This challenge is both local and global and it is the key to the future. It is only through developing high level scientific expertise that we will be able to support and establish better geopolitical strategies.”
As a matter of fact, this centre was created further to an alarming finding. The current industrial growth and economical development in Vietnam is significantly increasing the need for natural resources and have created new environmental issues. Moreover, only 50 % of the industrial waste water and 10 % of domestic waste water from cities in Vietnam are currently treated. Finally, during the 21st century, the Mekong Delta region will have to face unprecedented challenges related to climatic changes and factors of anthropogenic load. The centre’s research activities will in particular be aimed at developing the appropriate tools for monitoring the environment, assessing the associated risks and changes while adapting international discoveries to the specific features of the region. "CARE’s next goal will be to become a crossroad of experts of all cultures and all scientific disciplines which is essential for understanding the problems related with intelligent and sustainable management of water. Furthermore, CARE is intended to be incorporated in an already rich research landscape composed of many stakeholders thereby providing opportunities to develop synergies and interactions”.

* List of participants: Jean-Louis Duclos (ENS Lyon); Patrick Aebischer, Dimitrios Noukakis, Céline Dupuy, Jean-Claude Bolay, Stéphane Decoutère, Yuri Changkakoti and Julien Waehlti (EPFL); Mamadou Adj (Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique (Cheikh AntaDiop University, Dakar)); Brigitte Plateau, Nicolas Gratiot and Georges Vachaud (Grenoble INP); Pierre Lafleur (Polytechnique Montréal); Michel Devillers and Marc Lobelle (Catholic University of Leuven); Fadi Geara (Saint-Joseph University, Beirut).