On 29 January 2008, Professor Sudip K. Rakshit, Vice-President for research, received a visit from Dr. Gabriel de Taffin, outgoing Regional Director for Continental South-East Asia, and Dr. Jean-Claude Maillard, the new Regional Director for Continental South-East Asia as of 1 February 2008, both from the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development (CIRAD). This meeting provided an opportunity to introduce AIT to Dr. Maillard and to take stock of current and prospective collaborations between AIT and CIRAD. During their visit, Dr. de Taffin and Dr. Maillard also interacted with Prof. S. Kumar, Dean SERD, Dr. Rajendra Shrestha, Natural Resources Management Field of Study Coordinator, Dr. Mukand Babel, Water Engineering and Management Field of Study Coordinator, Dr. Sylvain Perret, seconded from CIRAD and faculty at both SET and SERD, Dr. Pritam K Shrestha, Head ERCO and Mr. Jean-Philippe Thouard, Advisor to the administration. CIRAD and AIT have collaborated for more than two decades now, with seconded CIRAD researchers being almost continuously present at AIT. Areas of cooperation currently include water economy and management, biotechnologies and geographical information systems. AIT and CIRAD's research priorities, both focusing primarily on poverty alleviation and sustainable development actually overlap to a significant extent and other concrete areas of collaboration are possible, such as bio-energies, climate change and its impact on the environment and societies, ecological intensification, etc. CIRAD has engaged in a process to review its worldwide strategy and asked for AIT's views and inputs, which AIT will provide in the near future.