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IAC News No.34, August 2015

 

International Activities Center Aug. 3, 2015 IAC News No.34 


The Construction Industry Global Vision Lecture Series 


Noriaki HIROSE
JSCE 102nd President

JSCE Effort to Nurture the Next Generation of Civil Engineers 

JSCE celebrated its centennial anniversary last year, and held a celebration ceremony and a wide range of events around the country. JSCE headquarters cooperated with its branch offices to organize those events and gathered momentum among the entire JSCE community. In the meantime, JSCE drew up the mid-term action plan “JSCE 2015”, in which “Key Mid-term Targets” and ten “Key Challenges” were prioritized for the next five years. The main points of the ten key challenges are as follows:

1)Develop a sustainable infrastructure through building disaster-resilient national land
2)Integrate knowledge and technologies of civil engineering to handle the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant
3)Undertake strategic life extension, renewal and replacement of aging infrastructures
4)Generate effective responses to environmental and energy issues at the global level
5)Concentrate civil engineering technologies to run local communities and re-design urban structures in the aging society with a declining birthrate
6)Nurture the next generation of civil engineers
7)Promote the transfer of civil engineering technology that has been developed in Japan globally and enhance contribution to infrastructure development in developing and emerging countries
8)Increase public knowledge and understanding of infrastructure development by promoting information dissemination and communication with the public
9)Enhance communication and cooperation across disciplinary and organizational boundaries so as to deal with diverse and complex infrastructure development
10)Strengthen cooperation among activities within JSCE, ensure the involvement of people of diverse background, and encourage local level activities.

While we have started working on some of these challenges, we will set up main actors for each challenge under their action plan. Focusing on the key challenges, as the first-year goal, we will take action by building systematic progress monitoring to follow each action’s progress. In taking action, we will invite engineers from diverse backgrounds, particularly giving opportunity to female and young engineers, to join the activities. It is our hope that working with these people will make positive contributions to the development of the next generation of civil engineers. Passing down the knowledge and experience of our senior and seasoned professionals to the next generation will provide a strong drive to keep moving forward to meet key challenges.

JSCE works with Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC) as part of its international activities. Civil Engineering Conference in the Asia Region (CECAR) is the ACECC’s major meeting, which is held every three years. The 8th CECAR has been scheduled for 2019 in Japan. JSCE will enhance communication among ACECC’s member societies, civil engineers, and researchers in the Asian region through the preparation of the 8th CECAR and vitalization of the Technical Committees (TCs) activities of ACECC.

Thank you.

 

 


Greeting from Mr.Noriaki HIROSE JSCE 103rd President

 

 


Mr. Parmeshwar UDAMALE
(University of Yamanashi)

Pursuing higher studies in Japan : International student's experience

I am an Indian student pursuing my Doctor of Engineering in Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) at International Research Centre for River Basin Environment (ICRE) - University of Yamanashi (UY), Japan for the period of 2012-2015. I’ve often heard about Japanese products and technology since my childhood and never imagined that I could be studying in Japan. But thanks to the MEXT (Monbukagakusho) for an opportunity to pursue doctoral degree in Japan.

Japan- The land of rising Sun has blessed with natural beauty which is at its peak during spring season. The clean roads, efficient waste disposal system, best examples of water supply and sanitation, landscape planning, and no power cuts etc. makes me feel amazing in Japan. The punctuality of rail service in Japan has its own class. The average delay for train is less than a minute, which impresses me the most. Being an earthquake prone country, Japan has established its own standard in terms of building structures and designs. I never felt unsafe about the risk of earthquake and timely participate in earthquake as well as fire disaster drills.


Hijiri-ushi (Grand Ox) used to weaken the flow of the river is an excellent example of river erosion control.

While expressing my feelings about Japanese higher education, I can say that very friendly relation exists between professors and students. However the professors follow the strict timeline of plans and expect their students to follow the same. Professors are very kind and always ready to help international students to live a comfortable life in UY. There is no language barrier while pursuing your academic life at UY; however you should know a little Japanese for communication outside your academic life. For the same, the International Student Centre at UY offers Japanese language education, extending into study support, life guidance, and consultation. The centre also organizes various events like spring parties, festivals, tours to historical places etc. to promote cultural exchange amongst international students.

My transition from a student life to a researcher is taking place at ICRE, UY. The ICRE has 5 sub-divisions namely Hydro-engineering, Water quality, Microbiology & treatment, Regional planning and Health risk division considering each component of IRBM. The centre not only has its own curriculum (classroom lectures, weekly seminars, laboratory experiments and field visits etc.) but also organizes timely guest lectures from expertise. For example, an interactive lecture on “What does a development worker think?" by Mr. Shigeyuki MATSUMOTO (Water Resource Management, JICA) etc. The main purpose of these kinds of activities is to create problem-solving abilities amongst the students. Centre invites international faculties and guest lecturers to present their recent work which helps students to learn things from international point of view and promotes international collaboration and research activities in foreign countries like current 5 years SATREPS project in Nepal led by Prof. Futaba KAZAMA.


I present the results of group work on “What does a development worker think?" in a lecture delivered by Mr. Shigeyuki MATSUMOTO (Water Resource Management, JICA)

 

In addition to the coursework, I am very glad to learn morals and ethics in publications while working as a student of Assoc. Prof. Yutaka ICHIKAWA (current affiliation- Kyoto University) and Assoc. Prof. Hiroshi ISHIDAIRA. During my study, I got inspiration and full support from them to join national and international conferences (IPWG 2013-New Delhi, India; JSCE 2014, Kobe-Japan; WWOSC2014-Montreal, Canada; icDrought 2015-Valencia, Spain) and internship - training courses (Internship 2014-UON, Newcastle, Australia; IPWG 2014-Tsukuba, Japan). Participation in these activities helped me to improve my technical expertise, to get familiar with worldwide research activities, and strengthened my collaboration with expertise within my research field.

In short, I can say that I am fortunate to study for a doctorate in engineering in Japan and having the best time in my life in UY. After completing the a doctoral program, I hope to work either in Japan or as a research project counterpart of a Japanese university while sharing future collaborative research projects  

【Footnote】

  • MEXT:Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
  • IPWG:International Precipitation Working Group
  • WWOSC:The World Weather Open Science Conference

 


Chair Katsuji FUKUMOTO
JSCE Construction Management Committee

International Exchange Activities of the Construction Management Committee

With the aim to promote active international exchange activities within the JSCE Construction Management Committee, the former Chair, Kazumasa Ozawa (University of Tokyo Graduate School), set up a permanent international collaboration project subcommittee in 2010. The committee under the current organization has maintained a policy that considers international exchanges to be an essential activity.
 

When the subcommittee was established, the committee debated the themes to pursue and narrowed them down to two major themes: 1) What are Japan’s advantages? and 2) What is required of Japan? Examples of the former included technology, specifications, systems, sincerity and honesty, and philosophy of harmony. Examples of the latter included total management, participation by younger generations, the introduction and mastery of new business approaches, and dissemination of information in English. Through discussions of these items, the following four policies were established: a) host international symposiums, b) hold overseas joint seminars, c) study the creation of opportunities to inspire Japanese young engineers to participate, and d) establish a network of overseas young engineers (and students) residing in Japan.

To date, the main activity has been hosting overseas joint seminars. Three seminars have been held in Indonesia (FY 2011, 2012, and 2013) and in Vietnam (FY 2012, 2013, and 2014). The first seminars in both countries focused on reporting the current state of general matters regarding construction management. Over time, the agenda shifted to quality management techniques and quality assurance systems, areas in which Japan is strong. The Japanese side described the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation system for public projects and works in the postwar era. At the same time, Japan also honestly addressed the challenges and difficulties concerning the old implementation method in the transition stage. In response, administrative officials from the countries frankly disclosed their current problems and solutions. This sincere and open sharing of information and opinions may be one of the factors that have maintained the relationships between Japan and both countries.

In the future, we plan to hold similar joint seminars in other countries and expand the activities in other fields. I’d like to express our appreciation for the warm support and cooperation that the JSCE has extended in hosting of these joint seminars.
Thank you.

 


Prof. Ozawa, Chair of Construction Management Committee answers questions.


The speakers and staff members of the joint seminar in Jakarta, 2011 are taken a photo together.

 

What's Happening

2015 JSCE Annual Meeting (Okayama University)
・2015/9/16

  • International Roundtable Meeting “Leveraging Big Data for Infrastructure Management and Sustainable Development”
  • International Workshop for Young Engineers “Why Did You Come to Japan?” -expectation, reality and future-
  • Special Discussion “Message to the Japanese Civil Engineering / Construction Industry from Former International Students who Studied in Japan"

・2015/9/16-17

  • The 17th International Summer Symposium

 

Updates

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Editor's postscript

A few days ago the Prime Minister stated that the government would aim to cut the cost of the Tokyo’s new Olympic Stadium to about 180 billion yen. Before that, some other politician said the cost for the stadium would be “only 2500 million yen. The discussion and criticism would continue for a while. I don’t deny that I like to see a new stadium, new facilities, and new roads. Is it really necessary to build a super-modern, gigantic stadium, I’m wondering. Building the one equipped with people-friendly facilities and devices which will be thanked and enjoyed next 50 years may be a worthwhile endeavor (Y.S.)