Bangladesh’s development gains over the past several decades have been impressive: it went from a food importer to a food exporter; its economy has grown at nearly 6 percent annually for more than 20 years; it has cut poverty rate by half over the last 15 years, and reduced under-five mortality by nearly 75 percent between 1990 and 2015. Furthermore, innovations by Bangladeshi institutions such as Grameen Bank and BRAC that introduced microfinance, non-formal education, cost-effective oral-rehydration therapies and its Rice Research Institute’s High Yielding variety of rice have not only transformed lives of tens of millions of its own people but also those of the world’s poor, especially women and children.

However, despite these positive gains, many challenges remain for this dynamic country. One-third of Bangladeshis still live in poverty. Its combination of high population density and low elevation make it highly susceptible to rising sea levels and extreme weather events. With more than 160 million people living in an area that is 11 times smaller than that of Queensland (there is an interesting comparison – if you put the entire population of the world into Australia, you get the same density of people that Bangladesh has got), Bangladesh’s challenges are formidable and these range from food security, employment, environmental sustainability, gender empowerment, equity, social justice and good governance. Bangladesh’s rising urbanization is also posing a different set of challenge for the country.

In order to sustain the momentum of national achievement and address various challenges that continue to confront the country, Bangladesh must put emphasis on research and explore new options and strategies for development. The University of Queensland (UQ) has been playing an important part, although indirectly, in building Bangladesh’s human, intellectual and research capacities through its educational and research programmes attended by researchers and scholars from Bangladesh.

The growing presence of Bangladeshi students at UQ led to the formation of University of Queensland Bangladesh Association (UQBDA) in 2014 to create a UQ-based platform for Bangladeshi students, academics and other staff to promote Bangladeshi values and culture in the wider UQ community. There are now around 130 Bangladeshi students studying various subjects and researching on issues as varied as social, human and physical sciences to engineering and technology. Bangladeshi origin faculty members, post-doc fellows and staff are enlisted as Advisors of this association. Since its inception UQBDA has successfully held regular social and cultural events to fulfil their own and that of larger UQ community’s multi-cultural needs. In 2016, it has taken an extraordinary initiative to organise a one-day conference for Bangladeshi-background RHD students at UQ and other local universities to exchange information and share ideas from their current research projects.

UQBDA firmly believes that the Conference would be an important forum for presenting and sharing information and strengthening Bangladesh-centric RHD works that are currently being conducted by both the Bangladeshi and non-Bangladeshi students and academics at UQ and other adjoining universities in Brisbane.