虎扑电竞

On the sidelines of the International Advisory Board meeting in October, senior members of University College London (UCL) and Tohoku University met to discuss the progress of seven on-going collaborative projects which recently received first round subsidies from a joint seed fund.

Updates from the projects - which include research in the fields of materials science, data science, neuroscience, disaster science as well as equality, diversity and inclusion - were positive and there were hopes that the next round of UCL-TU seed funding can also address the challenges of ageing societies. "We may look at making ageing interdisciplinary, as both universities are approaching research in this fashion," said UCL's Vice Provost Dame Nicola Brewer.

Tohoku University President Hideo Ohno agreed, adding that "as we are all happy with the outcome of our seed fund so far, I think we can keep this going for at least another year, maybe even two more years, and then evaluate again."

Several research groups said that they hope to apply for external funding and expect to produce more co-publications, further indicating that the projects are going well. "What we've seen with other partners is that as we invest seed funding, co-publications take a sharply upward trend," said Brewer. "So this is what we've hoped to see here - not as an outcome itself but as an output which starts to point the way towards the global impact that we can have by working together."

UCL and Tohoku University have already produced over a hundred co-published papers since 2013.

During the meeting, particular focus was also given to the issue of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). In March 2019, UCL and Tohoku University launched a joint project to explore how universities can improve gender equality in higher education. The work builds on the shared history of gender equality in education, both having been the first universities in their respective countries to accept female students.

UCL President and Provost Michael Arthur said that EDI "is a really important area in which we have been working on for some time. Men and women need to share the responsibility."

To that end, the UCL Male Allies Network - which aims to encourage and enable men to support gender equality initiatives, change attitudes and remove barriers to women's careers - will be extended to include activities with Tohoku University. It was also suggested that senior male academics from Tohoku University could meet with members of the Male Allies Network during UCL's "Best Practice" conference in 2020.

"It's important to address unconscious bias and one of the most effective ways is to engage men in our efforts," said Noriko Osumi, Tohoku University's first female vice president and head of the Centre for Gender Equality Promotion. She spoke of sharing parental responsibilities as an example, especially in Japan where childcare is still widely considered the woman's role.

"Tohoku University has the largest childcare system among national universities in Japan. And that is important because here in Japan we still suffer from very rigid gender bias and stereotypes, and we want to help our female researchers have the same opportunities."

Going forward the two universities outlined good practices which they can learn from each other, such as support for women returning from maternity leave, outreach initiatives and an academic promotions framework that includes the recognition of gender equality work, pastoral and mentoring roles.