Events
Second General Assembly along with Evening Lecture and Debate
In the evening of 14 July 2005, the second General Assembly of the UK-JSPS Alumni Association was held at the Royal Geographical Society. At the assembly, it was announced that Ms. Melody Liles would succeed Dr. Darren Bagnall as the association's secretary. After completing this and other items of business, a lecture and debate, entitled "Earth-Shaking Events: Natural Disasters and Their Global Impact", was held on the impact of natural disasters and vulnerability to them, focusing on the recent tsunami in Asia.
Invited to address the session was Prof. Kenji Satake, Geological Survey of Japan, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST); Prof. Julian Hunt, University College London; and Dr. Terry Cannon, University of Greenwich. Their presentations not only covered natural disasters from a perspective of the natural sciences but also in terms of their social and political impacts as seen from the viewpoint of humanities and social sciences. Capturing the interest of all the attendees, this approach spawned an extremely broad-based discussion. Altogether, some 60 people attended the event, who included government officials, researchers in related fields and NGO representatives as well as the association members. As it gave the alumni an opportunity to interface with people from various sectors, this lecture-debate session had value beyond being a mere members activity. In the future, it is expected that the association will continue to build the Anglo-Japanese research community through events such as this. .
