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IAC News No.128, June 2023

Japan Society of Civil Engineers  International Activities Center June 1, 2023  IAC News No.128

A Message from the JSCE President
International Cooperation Regarding Global Issues in the Civil Engineering Field

Tamon Ueda
110th JSCE President
*Photographer: Rumiko Ito

 

The Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) has continuously formed five-year plans, with its current plan JSCE 2020-2024 (JSCE2020 (1)). JSCE2020 outlines four major mid-term targets, one of which is “to roll out high-quality Japanese infrastructure to the rest of the world and to lead efforts to help resolve international issues.” To this end, JSCE2020 states that JSCE will actively lead efforts to develop globally-minded human resources in Japan, and the General Committee for Globalizing Civil Engineering in the President Ueda Project also aligns itself with this goal. Furthermore, “for dealing with problems of a global scale,” JSCE2020 states that JSCE, “will engage in international cooperation to resolve international issues through experts from industry, government, and academia uniting together and utilizing each other’s strengths in working on technical efforts.” This is also in sync with “ACECC Tokyo Declaration 2019 (2)” declared at CECAR8, an international conference of the Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC (3)) organized by JSCE.

As for JSCE’s international efforts to date, the main focus had been on technical assistance and personnel development in developing countries. However, from here on, JSCE has highlighted the importance of engaging in international cooperation with developed countries and developing countries on common global issues, as stated in JSCE2020.

The counterparts to JSCE’s international cooperation are civil engineering-related academic societies located in various countries and regions. Currently, 31 academic societies (Figure 1) have signed a partnership agreement with JSCE; 12 of which are members of ACECC. At present, ACECC has 17 member organizations. The reason JSCE has more partner academic societies is that ACECC is an international organization in Asia, and there are no member organizations from Europe and America other than the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

For JSCE to cooperate with the civil engineering-related academic societies in each country, it must have a sufficient understanding of the organizations it will work with and what they do exactly. That is, the circumstances of the organizations differ from that of JSCE, with a diverse range of organizations depending on the country and region. For example, many countries do not have an academic society that includes the words of civil engineering in the name. In Australia, Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, their engineering societies will be the counterparts for international cooperation. Even academic societies that contain the words of civil engineering do not cover all fields of civil engineering, and in China and Indonesia, the field of hydroengineering is not included, with hydroengineering split off into a separate organization. Also, some organizations, just like the Japan Federation of Engineering Societies (JFES), are like a federation of sub-organizations, with organizations in China and Vietnam corresponding to this structure. In such cases, each sub-organization carries out substantial efforts. While JSCE is home to experts from industry, government, and academia and also actively engages in creative initiatives such as technical surveys and research, organizations in other countries such as USA and the UK mainly focus on education and activities to promote awareness. The Korean Society of Civil Engineers (KSCE) is a society similar to JSCE in terms of the type of organization and its initiatives.

After understanding the aforementioned circumstances, by engaging in bilateral and multilateral cooperation, JSCE will tackle global issues such as addressing natural disasters, the problem of overpopulation, climate change, diversity and inclusion, and developing human resources. As is evident from comparing JSCE against the organizations of other countries, because JSCE is one of a handful of organizations that covers all aspects of civil engineering and where experts from industry, government, and academia work together to carry out technical and research activities comprehensively, we believe that JSCE has a duty to lead international cooperation. Going forward, JSCE will continuously and actively engage in international cooperation efforts. We hope we can count on you all to help make these efforts a success.
 


Figure 1: JSCE’s International Network

 

◆References:
(1) JSCE’s five-year plan (JSCE 2020-2024): https://committees.jsce.or.jp/JSCE20XX/jsce2020
(2) ACECC Tokyo Declaration 2019: https://committees.jsce.or.jp/acecc/node/46
(3) The Committee on Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC): 
     https://committees.jsce.or.jp/acecc/node/4

 

FY2022 JSCE Awards

Twenty civil engineers including two non-Japanese engineers were recognized with International Lifetime Contribution Award and Continuing International Contribution Award. The recipients by award are listed in the table below.
For further details, please visit https://www.jsce.or.jp/prize/prize_list/p2022.shtml.

< International Lifetime Contribution Award: 5 recipients >
The Award recognizes (1) Japanese civil engineers for their significant contributions to the development of civil engineering technology and/or the infrastructure development through their professional practices in and outside Japan; (2) non-Japanese civil engineer(s) for his/her commendable achievements to the progress and promotion of Japanese civil engineering.

NAME AFFILIATION
Yuichi Ishikawa Nippon Koei Co., Ltd.
Onozaki Hirokazu Obayashi Corporation
Akira Koyama Japan Sediments Management Association
Hitoshi Tanaka Tohoku University
Nguyen Ngoc Hue Vietnam Association of Port-Waterway-Offshore Engineering

< Continuing International Contribution Award: 15 recipients >
The Award recognizes young professionals who have made and will make a significant contribution to the development of civil engineering and/or the development of infrastructure outside Japan with their unique and inspiring perspectives and solid technical skills.

NAME AFFILIATION NAME AFFILIATION
Jun Izawa Railway Technical Research Institute Hiroshi Hoshiya Electric Power Development Co., Ltd.
Tomohiro Ono Japan International Cooperation Agency Kakuya Matsushima Kyoto University
Kazuyoshi Takashima Hazama Ando Corporation Junichi Mizuta The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.
Tomohiro Taguchi Obayashi Corporation Naoto Mizuno Yachiyo Engineering Co., Ltd.
Masataka Tanimoto SHIMIZU CORPORATION Takeshi Muronaga Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
Kentaro Nishizawa Oriental Consultants Global Co., Ltd. Toru Yamaji National Research and Development Agency,
National Institute of Maritime, Port and Aviation Technology,
Port and Airport Research Institute
Takayuki Fujitomi Nippon Koei Co., Ltd. Jian-Hong Wu National Cheng Kung University
Toru Furukawa TAISEI CORPORATION    

 

 

Updates

◆JSCE Feedback Web Form「多門に多聞&多問」
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/chair/node/59
◆The International Infrastructure Archives – A Compilation of Japan’s Greatest Projects in Transfer of Civil Engineering Technology in Service –
http://www.jsce.or.jp/e/archive/ 
◆IAC “News Pick Up!!” on the JSCE Japanese website
https://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/iac_dayori_2023
◆Summary of featured articles in JSCE Magazine Vol. 108, No.6, June 2023
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine
◆Journal of JSCE
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/journalofjsce
◆5th JSCE Concrete Committee Webinar “Frontiers of Concrete Technology”
https://www.jsce-int.org/node/814
◆The 4th Asian Concrete Federation (ACF) Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Structural Longevity (ACF2022_ETSL): https://acf2022.aconf.org/index.html
◆CECAR10:http://www.cecar10.org/
◆ASCE 2023 CONVENTION, CHICAGO (October, 18-21)
https://convention.asce.org/
◆KSCE 2023 CONVENTION (October, 18-20)
https://eng.ksce.or.kr/activities/act01.asp?idx=60&page=1&sfield=&gtxt=&...
 

Subcription

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