At the recent 2026 Entente Cordiale University Challenge in Paris, representing Oxford were a team of three MPhil in Development Studies students – Sua Cho, Amalia Ghina Alfiya, and Khin Thazin. The team were incredibly honoured to win the Sir Winston Churchill Entente Cordiale Prize. 

This academic competition brings together students from leading UK and French universities to collaborate on major global challenges and propose practical solutions.

Out of over 700 registered students and 200 participating teams, the MPhil team were selected as one of 10 finalists to present their work before an international Grand Jury at the Entente Cordiale Day Summit in Paris. 

Tackling this year’s theme of ‘Conflicts, Technologies, and World Security’, they entered the competition to highlight how global climate solutions often create severe blind spots in the Global South. This motivation was driven specifically by the highly controversial nickel mining expansions currently threatening the biodiverse region of Raja Ampat in West Papua, Indonesia. 

The team wanted to demonstrate how Development Studies can bridge the gap between engineering, environmental protection, and local justice, arguing that the EV-driven energy transition cannot come at the cost of Indigenous survival or trigger ecological conflicts through toxic wastewater dumping. To address this, they proposed an integrated framework combining electrocoagulation technology for water treatment with agromining for land restoration, anchored entirely in Sasi – an Indigenous Papuan governance framework – and funded through existing local community development streams (PPM) and blended finance strategy. 

The team said, “Pitching our ideas directly to international policymakers was an unforgettable experience, and we are incredibly excited for the opportunity to present our framework at Buckingham Palace later this year. Ultimately, this challenge allowed us to see how academic research translates into actionable solutions for the world's most pressing global challenges.”