Young researchers focus on solutions at Sweden-Japan MIRAI Sustainability Workshop

Published: April 25, 2019

On March 28 and 29, Tokyo Tech hosted the MIRAI Sustainability Workshop, bringing together early-career researchers from Japanese and Swedish universities for presentations and discussions on "Pathways to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."

March 2019 MIRAI Sustainability Workshop participants

History of the workshop

The MIRAI Sustainability Workshop is one of several activities under MIRAI, a project launched in 2016 to promote long-term research collaborations between Sweden and Japan. With a focus on the fields of Sustainability, Materials Science, and Ageing, the project holds yearly seminars and workshops intended to provide early-career researchers with the knowledge, contacts, and networks to enable them to lead future research collaboration between the two countries.

Researchers from the two countries have started several collaborative research projects in the field of Sustainability, some of which have received grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science or the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT).

4th MIRAI Sustainability Workshop

The fourth in the MIRAI Sustainability Workshop series, this latest MIRAI event at Tokyo Tech aimed to encourage young researchers to examine how their research and possible collaborations with each other could contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.

Keynote speeches included:

Planning Towards Sustainable Cities: Challenges of the Japanese Cities
by Professor Norihiro Nakai, Dean of the School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Tech
Pathways to societal transformations to sustainability: a cross-country comparison
by Professor Björn-Ola Linnér, Linköping University
Innovation, Collaboration, and Transformation for Peace and Sustainability
by Professor Yohsuke Yamamoto, Executive Vice President for Research, Hiroshima University

Building on previous themes within the realm of Sustainability, the workshop was organized around the sharing of research through participant presentations and group discussions within the relevant sub-topics of "solutions for energy issues," "solutions for water resources," and "solutions for other sustainability-related issues."

Workshop participants engage in mapping activity
to place their research in context of SDGs

Tokyo Tech Asst. Prof. Kei Hasegawa leads tour
of Environment Energy Innovation (EEI) Building

Tokyo Tech Assoc. Prof. Manabu Fujii reports
on discussions on solutions for water resources

On day two, participants engaged in mapping activities to consider where their research fit, both individually and within their groups, in the specific context of the SDGs.

MIRAI Scientific Steering Committee Member Linnér, who led the workshop as a senior researcher, commented, "This discussion is important in the international research community. We can make a timely contribution to the research community by focusing on interactions between research and society."

The two-day workshop was chaired by Tokyo Tech Vice President for International Affairs Hidetoshi Sekiguchi, a MIRAI Scientific Steering Committee Member. Ten researchers from Swedish universities and 22 researchers from Japanese universities, including Tokyo Tech, participated.

MIRAI Sustainability Workshop participants visit Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City

Tokyo Tech researchers will attend the next MIRAI Sustainability Workshop — the final such workshop in the initial three-year project period — in Sweden in November 2019.

Contact

International Cooperation Division, International Affairs Department

Email kokuren.kik.cho@jim.titech.ac.jp
Tel +81-3-5734-3016