It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of Univ.-Prof. Dr. DDDDr.h.c. Bernd Michael Rode. We mourn the loss of a valuable and highly esteemed person who was inseparably linked to the cooperation programmes and activities between Austria and Southeast Asia. The OeAD has accompanied these activities and projects for several decades.
In addition to being a researcher, Bernd Michael Rode was also a pioneer in the internationalisation of Austrian higher education institutions, playing a key role in the foundation of the ASEAN-European Academic University Network (ASEA-UNINET) in 1994. As a visionary with a creative spirit he enabled the creation of highly successful and influential research projects through this initiative, which in turn led to further projects and to an expansion of the networking of Austrian universities with renowned higher education institutions and research institutions in Southeast Asia.
Almost three decades after the foundation of ASEA-UNINET more than 80 institutions from almost 20 countries are now part of the network. Bernd Michael Rode’s merit will always be remembered and will live on in the network. Many OeAD employees knew Prof. Rode personally and held him in high esteem. With him the OeAD has lost a companion and a driving force behind numerous activities that we at the OeAD will now continue to manage without him. Our deepest sympathy goes to his family.
We would like to thank you for the many messages of remembrance and condolence shared on the occasion of his funeral and would like to share some of them to highlight his lasting legacy:
“Without Bernd Michael Rode ASEA-UNINET would not exist in its current form. In the late 1970s he established scientific exchange and contacts between his home university, the University of Innsbruck, and several Thai universities. This laid the foundation for a partnership agreement signed between the University of Innsbruck and Chulalongkorn and Mahidol in Bangkok, the University of Vienna and Chiang Mai, the University of Agricultural Sciences in Vienna and Kasetsart in Bangkok in the 1980s and has expanded since then to become the ASEA-UNINET as we know it today. We all share wonderful memories of Bernd, he was an exceptional and inspiring personality! The best way to remember him is to keep our network active and alive so that he and his work will never be forgotten!”
- Prof. Dr. Gabriele Kotsis (ASEA-UNINET National Coordinator, Austria & ASEA-UNINET Past President)
“Bernd Michael Rode was an extraordinarily creative spirit and visionary. It is mainly thanks to him that ASEA-UNINET was set up. A large number of very successful and monumental research projects in Asia and Europe are due to his initiative alone. He was always a fatherly friend to us members of the ASEA-UNINET family on whose advice and help we could always rely one hundred percent. His wit and humor are also unforgettable to all of us and we will all miss it very much. It is now up to us to carry on his legacy with the same passion.”
- Prof. Dr.Dr.h.c. A Min Tjoa (ASEA-UNINET Coordinator for Technology, Innovation and Sustainability Projects for Europe)