Announcement

NIED participated in 18th Annual meeting of Science and Technology in Society forum (STS forum) from 2nd to 5th October, 2021 online, where 1,400 participants from academia, government, and industry discussed on the role of science and technology, including 25 Nobel Laureates.

On 2nd October, 2021, NIED President Haruo HAYASHI made a keynote speech at the 10th Global Summit of Research Institute Leaders (RIL) under the subject of “Contributing to Resilient Societies through Science and Technology”. The seminar was held online, attended by approximately 30 leading research institutes. President Hayashi addressed “Building Disaster Resiliency by Cross-boundary Synergies of Science and Technology” and described on the framework of consilience of knowledge, Online Synthesis System (OSS), and Facilitators. The discussion points will be reflected into the Final Statement at a later date.

The STS Forum was held annually in Kyoto in a normal situation, attended by around 1,000 participants from around the world. This year’s themes included tackling infectious diseases; global healthcare initiatives; developing science and technology talent in emerging economies; the social challenges brought about by the digital revolution; disruptive industrial technologies; life-long learning amid major changes of science and technology and society; and the need to synthesize fragmented and enormous knowledge with a clear vision. The forum was concluded by the statement, which, in the field of Resilient Society, states we should converge science, technology, and social sciences with input from and engagement with civil society.

At Young Leaders’ Program on 30th September, 2021, Dr. Hitoshi Taguchi, Deputy Manager at Disaster Information Research Division, participated in the session and contributed to livery discussions with Nobel laureates and other young researchers from around the world.

The 13th Regional Action on Climate Change (RACC13) was held on 1st October, 2021, to discuss under the title of “Confronting Risk Convergence – Building resilience to regional interactions of climate, biodiversity and public health risks”. The discussions concluded with importance of accelerating local, regional, national, and global scales decisions to mitigate climate change, to conserve and restore biodiversity, to internalize pricing the value of natural services, to build resilience and reduce societal exposure to those impacts which cannot be avoided, and to identify effective protective and restorative options. NIED, as a member of the committee, will further contribute to the global efforts to avoid our planetary crisis in the future.