(UTV|COLOMBO) – The 11th International Research Conference (IRC) of the, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) will be held on 13th and 14th of September (2018) at the KDU campus in Ratmalana. The annual conference of Sri Lanka’s premier defence university will be held under the theme ‘Securing Professional Excellence through Collaboration’.
A media conference was held to inform of the oncoming International Research Conference, at the KDU on Wednesday (02).
The keynote address of this year’s edition of the IRC will be made by Professor Mohan Munasinghe, Vice Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), who shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007. Professor Munasinghe is also the Chairman of the Presidential Expert Commission on Sustainable Sri Lanka 2030 Vision. Two foreign based eminent Sri Lankan intellectuals are also been invited to speak at the conference.
Deputy Vice Chancellor (Defence and Administration) Maj Gen Indunil Ranasinghe and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) Professor Jayantha Ariyaratne, elaborated on the Conference and the KDU to the media personnel present at the press briefing held his morning.
The IRC is a world class forum that brings professionals and researchers of various disciplines to a common platform to disseminate and share their valuable research findings. Professionals and researchers from across the world who participate at this intellectual gathering of Sri Lanka’s National Defence University will be able to present, discuss and deliberate their research findings with peers and experts.
The KDU has commenced calling for research papers for the 11th edition of the IRC and interested researchers may submit either their extended abstracts or full papers under two categories to the Conference to be held in September, this year. The deadline for presenting papers will end on mid (15) May (2018). The previous edition of the IRC in 2017 saw over 550 papers being submitted by both local and international researchers of which 365 papers were published. This is a huge increase from the initial 35 papers being submitted in the inaugural Conference in 2008. This shows the growing importance of the IRC in the regional conference circuit.
The Conference holds its sessions in the fields of Defence & Strategic Studies, Engineering, Basic & Applied Sciences, Computing, Information Technology, Management, Social Science, Humanities, Law, Medicine, Built Environment & Spatial Sciences and Allied Health Sciences. Therefore the Conference enriches the contribution towards academic research with the participation of many local and foreign academics, professionals and practitioners who present their research at this annual event.
This year the IRC will see several new features including the use of Skype for presentations and the participants will be able to utilize the Digital Library facility. Selected papers will also be published in the KDU journal.
The KDU was initially established as the ‘General Sir John Kotelawala Defence Academy’ by the Parliamentary Act No 68 of 1981 and subsequently it was elevated to University status by the amendment Act No 27 of 1988, thereby empowering it to award Bachelors’ and Postgraduate degrees in Defence Studies. It is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (United Kingdom) and maintains necessary standards for educating and grooming Officer Cadets to meet the challenges of modern defence management.
At present there are about 6200 undergrads including 250 foreign students following a variety of courses offered through seven faculties here. In addition to the main campus at Ratmalana, the KDU also has its Southern Campus at Sooriyawewa and the University Hospital at Werahera in Colombo.
Chairperson – IRC 2018, Dr. Upali Rajapaksa and Conference Secretary – IRC 2018, Ms. Bhagya Senaratne were also associated with the press briefing.
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