Søren Staugaard Nielsen, Neel Strøbæk
December 7, 2022
Cambodia’s leading social psychologist wins EUR 67,000 prize from Ramboll Foundation
Thearom Ret of Royal University of Phnom Penh is the 2022 winner of the Flemming Bligaard Award for his research in mental health in post-conflict cities in south-east Asia.
The eighth billion person was born recently, likely in Asia, which is home to nearly 60% of the world’s population, and likely in a city, where more than half of all people live today. Life in cities is not always happy but Thearom Ret is working to change that.
He is investigating how the social and cultural environment can be either a barrier or a resource to people dealing with their mental health. His research, conducted in Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh, explores social norms, value systems, quality of life, social integration and individuals' past traumas – with the aim of helping people live better lives.
“There is little English or foreign language research on the issue of mental health in post conflict Cambodia. I want to fill that gap and contribute with insights and knowledge in this field,” says Thearom Ret, lecturer in social psychology at Royal University of Phnom Penh.
The issue of mental health in urban areas in Cambodia, the number of people living in the urban area keep increasing whereas many antisocial trauma mental health issues remain and so it's important for us to look at how people cope with their daily life issues. Hello everyone, my name is Thierry Om Red. I'm a lecturer and researcher in psychology mainly based at Royal University of Phnom Penh, UPP. I'm also a research fellow at the Cambodia University of Technology and Science, Chemtech. My research concerns mainly the intention to improve the mental well-being among people living in a city. What would be the factor that influence people's attitude and behavior. This factor may lead to physical environment, social cultural environment, and also the influence of social norm, which relate also in the post conflict situation, the collective trauma. The prize money that I received from Fleming Bliga award will be so helpful to me as well as to my research team at Chemtech to use it for conducting very comprehensive research study. The research inspired me a lot. I'm really interested in conducting research because it's a way to help people live better in the future and especially within the framework of post conflict situation.
“Phnom Penh provides a clear case for how trauma affects negatively in issues such as parenting, how people live with trauma and how we can identify potential resources - social cultural, environmental – in a city, and apply them to a post-conflict situation,” he adds.
The award includes a EUR 67,000 prize to support Thearom Ret’s future research.
“Mental health often takes a back seat to people’s immediate needs, especially in emerging economies where economic growth is a priority,” says Robert Arpe, Chairman of the Ramboll Foundation. “So, we are delighted to support this ground-breaking research that explores the relationships between a city's built-environment and the mental health of its citizens, helping put mental wellbeing at the heart of the social sustainability agenda.”
Unlocking barriers to better mental health
Early-career researchers from a range of disciplines and backgrounds were invited to apply for the 2022 Flemming Bligaard Award. The aim was to address the complexity and diversity in urban mental health issues, and encourage research outcomes that are applicable, replicable, and scalable in diverse urban environments.
The Fleming Pliego Award was established to honor Fleming Pliego. He has served Rambel for forty years and in the end of his career as the chairman of the Rambel Foundation. So it was natural for the Rambel Foundation to kind of put this milestone when he left Rambell. The award is to support an early career researcher who works with sustainability and sustainable solutions. And this year we have actually focused on the people part. Because the people part and the social awareness and the social part of the city is very, very important of course on how we build our cities and how we create the societies. I'm actually very happy to say that we have found a researcher who is using his background as a psychologist to understand what is actually mental health and well-being in cities. On top of that also a person who has made research on reconstruction after major events such as civil unrest and wars, which is unfortunately also relevant for Europe today. We are looking very much forward to working together with this award winner and learning from him and his work on how we in Rambel can improve mental health and well-being in the cities.
“My research focuses on how the social culture and environment could be a barrier or a resource to have people dealing with their mental health. We will be looking at social norms, the system of values, the quality of life, social integration and their past traumas,” explains Thearom Ret.
The research aims to develop standard measurements for how people maintain a sense of meaning in their lives and ultimately enable a better quality of life in post-conflict urban spaces.
Phnom Penh is the location for fieldwork, reflecting the city’s recent post-conflict history and the research will be scaled to other cities in Cambodia such as Siem Reap. Further, the research will include an international comparative element to instigate how to make the findings globally applicable to other post-conflict urban environments, including those affected by ongoing or recent conflicts. The research also addresses knowledge gaps and misconceptions about mental health in Cambodia.
Better prepared for climate impact
Improved quality of life inevitably needs to encompass resilience to climate impacts. Cambodia, like other countries in south-east Asia, will be impacted by a warming global climate. Cambodians will have to be prepared for these changes – and better mental health can help them prepare.
“People with unresolved or hidden trauma may find it difficult to understand how they might actually be impacted by climate risks,” Thearom Ret explains. The rainy season, for instance, can trigger flooding which in turn could trigger traumatic memories of the country’s civil war, and impact people’s survival mechanisms.
The research aims to investigate the link between risk perception and how people reconstruct society, and eventually “encourage people to behave more rationally to the situation facing them,” he adds.
About the winner
As a child in rural Cambodia, Thearom Ret witnessed the influence of conflict, and his early memories include having to stay at home from school as the Khmer Rouge was disrupting everyday life in his home province Battambang.
When he moved to Phnom Penh with his parents, he could see the effect that the conflict had on people around him. This inspired him to choose his field of research. Today, Thearom Ret is Cambodia’s first and only social psychologist, holding positions at several universities. He also works with policymakers in Cambodia to promote mental health and community healing on a broader level.
About the Award
The Flemming Bligaard Award, named in honour of former Ramboll CEO and chairman of the Ramboll Foundation, is given annually to an early career academic, whose work has made an outstanding contribution to sustainable development. The award runs for a three-year period, 2020-2022. This year marks the final year of the award.
Hello, Thierrym. Very good to see you this morning. And certainly, I would like to congratulate you with this prize and award. Hello, sir. Thanks a lot for your kind message. And this award is very meaningful to Cambodian people, especially researchers in the field of social psychology and social science in overall. As I understand, we talk about livability And certainly, livability is a challenge for a global challenge for all of us. As an engineer, I would like to ask you a little bit about your expectations for the results. I know it's a bit early, do you have any expectations for which kind of parameters you will find in your investigation? I think it's important to look at social norm among different social group of people. Let's say Phnom Penh is a capital city of Cambodia. We can use it as a case study to try to understand how human attitude can be influenced by physical environment and social cultural environment and how we can foster the social norm in order to promote pro environmental behavior. Okay, and I understand also that you will share some of these investigations with colleagues from maybe other countries. Yeah, and maybe focusing on the research conducted in Phnom Penh and maybe if we have a possibility to do it also in another city in Cambodia like Siem Reap, it would be wonderful as a result of finding and how we can sustain or improve the mental well-being of these people by trying to measure their quality of life, their perception towards environmental risk, and also social harmony, to be more specific, social integration. And I would like to ask you, do you know a little bit about the Rambo company? There are many people who have a big heart to contribute to environment, to contribute to society, and that's why I was really inspired to apply for this award. And I feel really grateful and honored at the same time to receive this award. Thanks a lot for your consideration. I'm sure your research will be just to the bull's eye of what we would like to support from the Rambo Foundation. Thank you very much. My honor. Thank you.
The 2021 award was given to Anne Lyck Smitshuysen for her work demonstrating how to increase the size of the cells used to produce green hydrogen, helping cut costs and increase scale of production, for the benefit of the green energy transition.
In 2020, the inaugural award was given to UK-based architect and researcher Colin Rose for his work on cross-laminated secondary timber to replace concrete in the building industry, thereby reducing embodied carbon and enhancing circularity.
Mental health in Cambodia
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The Cambodian population suffered severely under the Khmer Rouge which ruled the country in 1975-1979. In that time, more than 2 million people out of a population of 7.8 million were killed in what is known as the Cambodian Genocide.
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Today, a large portion of the adult population of Cambodia suffers the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge, which impacts mental well-being.
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Globally, city dwellers have an almost 40% higher risk of depression, are over 20% more anxious, and are more lonely, isolated, and stressed than rural populations, according to The Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health.
Want to know more?
Neel Strøbæk
Deputy Chair of the Board, former Senior Group Director, Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility, Ramboll Group
+45 51 61 86 41
Søren Staugaard Nielsen
Managing Director, Ramboll Foundation
+45 51 61 78 86
