Conveniently located in south central Nepal, the ISER-N office at Fulbari, Chitwan has easy access from and to the rest of the country. The office complex consists of two buildings: the main office and the guest house. The main office building, designed to carry out large-scale research projects, includes a highly secure computing facility that has a backup energy supply, climate control, and power regulation equipment. There is a large training hall that can comfortably accommodate up to 50 participants at once, a meeting hall, a coding room, and several office rooms for research staff and administrative personnel. The institute has recently developed a telephone survey facility as well. The institute also maintains a library of study materials related to population, the environment, and social science research methods. Also, the institute has developed an environmental lab with the initiation of basic soil sampling tests. The institute also maintains several additional field/site offices located throughout the current study area. The guest house is designed to provide accommodation for visiting scholars and researchers.
We also strive to establish and strengthen the necessary infrastructure for conducting and managing high-quality social and environmental research in Nepal. Specifically, we aim to:
Research Infrastructure: Establish physical and technical research infrastructure including social and environmental data collection facilities including GIS labs, telephone and computer-based survey labs, and computing facilities that will support state-of-the-art research in the context of rapid changes in the technology and research methods.
Data Archival and Data Analysis Infrastructure: Develop and maintain the appropriate and high-tech hardware infrastructure necessary to archive data collected by ISER-N and other institutions in Nepal. As well as to maintain computing facilities to encourage analysis of data.
The computing facility includes 224 laptops, 21 desktop computers, 25 tablets, 50 GPS devices, 31 mobile phone sets, 13 voice recorders, 11 landline phones and 21 camera sets that are regularly used for field data collection and management at main and site offices. For uninterrupted internet connection, highly essential 25 for regular data transfer through CAPI, strong dedicated internet connection (5 MBPS and 2 MBPS) through multiple service providers have been installed. These equipment and devices are also backed up by three strong Google Wi-Fi routers, a Microtik router (1100AH) and six portable router (wi-fi devices). Also, ISER-N uses and maintains its own server “Windows Server 2012, R2, 64 GB RAM, 8TB Hard Disk” and “Linux Server, 16GB RAM, 1TB Hard Disk” for regular interview data processing and secure backup.
ISER-N maintains necessary supporting equipment specific to each research project such as several saliva storage racks (each having a storage capacity of 600 to 1000 saliva sample) and bar code to label each sample for saliva sample processing; UCB-PATS, Micropem, SKC Pump, ToxiRae, and Sums-Stove for indoor air quality measurement; SLIT LAMP, imaging module, etc. for different health studies; photo machine, printers and others. Besides, ISER-N has a separate soil lab for preliminary soil tests with distilled water set up, freezer, hot air oven, soil pH meter and other necessary equipment.
Located in south central Nepal in Chitwan, ISER-N’s premise consists of the main office building and the guest house. The office building is furnished with air conditioning, two generators (35 KVA and 15KVA)and solar power back up (3.78KW) for uninterrupted power supply and several voltage stabilizers to control the climate and to regulate the power. The guest house with five bedrooms and a meeting room is designed to provide accommodation for visiting scholars and researchers with all the modern amenities. The institute also maintains several additional field/site offices located throughout the study area in Chitwan.
ISER-N Training Hall The institute has a spacious training hall that can comfortably accommodate up to 50 participants and is equipped with a large screen and a high definition projector set up with automated system; two meeting halls each having capacity to accommodate 10 to 15 persons and contains LED TV (60 inch) with cables to display presentation; a coding room; several office rooms for research staff and administrative personnel; telephone survey facility room; secure storage rooms for data storage; and a library. The library offers a wide variety of materials related to population, the environment and social science. Albert and Charlotte Anderson Long Distance Learning Room The Long Distance Learning Room is the initiative of ISER-N to promote learning through the use of technology to support demographic research and training by overcoming the need for trainers to travel from different parts of the world. Instead, professors and trainers can simply use the technology to share necessary knowledge and guidance with the help of this program, saving both time and financial resources. The Long Distance Learning Room Program is the first and only of its kind in Nepal and has been funded by Albert and Charlotte Anderson since 2015.The room has been set up with the advanced video conference technology using Polycom server, three LED TVs (65 inch each) and can accommodate up to 20 participants.