Summary : About 500 researchers, academicians, and members of the scientific community gathered for the 3rd IDRC-SEARCA Annual Fellowship Plus Conference-Workshop held in conjunction with the 7th International Conference on Environment and Rural Development (ICERD) on 16-17 January 2016 at the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Jointly organized by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC), RUA, International Society of Environmental and Rural Development (ISERD), Institute of Environmental Rehabilitation and Conservation (ERECON), and the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), the Conference was the finale in a series of annual fellowship plus conference-workshops under the Southeast Asian Upland Agriculture Fellowship.

A five-year collaboration between IDRC and SEARCA, the fellowship project was built as a capacity-building program that will address food security and sustainable agriculture in the uplands by strengthening the knowledge and research skills of professionals in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam. The annual roving fellowship plus conference-workshops is a unique feature of the project that serves as a venue for knowledge sharing with partner institutions, informal networking among the scholars, and first-hand experiences through upland site visits.