The second ASIAQ workshop was hosted by University of Tokyo, October 29-30. The workshop was arranged so it coincided with the 2nd Stockholm-Tokyo Workshop “Multidisciplinary collaboration for sustainable development” and all ASIAQ members were invited to a pre-conference reception the evening before the two workshops. This provided a very good opportunity to meet up with new and old friends of the scientific community in adjacent and overlapping research areas.
The two workshops started out together in the Tokyo University Hongo Campus and the Ito-hall with opening speeches by the U Tokyo president Prof Gonokami and the former president of KTH Prof Gudmundsson who also delivered video greetings from the presidents of Karolinska Institut (KI), SU and KTH.
After the plenary session on Health aging the ASIAQ team broke out for our separate session.
In the ASIAQ workshop Prof Yamaguchi gave a very interesting plenary presentation on ”Arctic Research in Japan”. The remaining of the first day and the first half of the the second day all partners provided presentations on their respective ongoing work. The thematic topics for the six sessions were; Science communication, Ocean mapping, Arctic Ecosystems, Logistic and Travel, Modelling and Sensing. In conjunction with these presentations several interesting discussions on common challenges were initiated.
One key deliverable from the ASIAQ project will be a white paper. The afternoon of the second day was dedicated to the discussion on the outline of such paper including; who will be the main receiver(s) and how will the paper be used. It was agreed that the paper should focus on (and also possibly the title) “challenges in working in integrated and trans-disciplinary ways”.
The next ASIAQ workshop will be hosted by University of New Hampshire during the spring of 2019.
Magnus Burman, Nina Kirchner and Elisabet Idermark
See more pictures from the workshop
Programme and practical information
The workshop 29-30 October in Tokyo, Japan, was the second workshop where the discussions on the strategies to contribute to the SDGs continued. There were also presentations by both senior and junior researchers to learn cross-disciplinary aspects of the issues.