Bangkok--4 Jul--Asian Institute of Technology
By Shawn Kelly
The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand is set to become the Asian hub for the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS), a leading consortium of some of the world’s top research universities dedicated to achieving sustainability for the planet.
The international partnership was started by four of the world’s leading science and technology universities – ETH Zurich & EPFL, MIT, The University of Tokyo, and Chalmers University of Technology. Launched in 1996, AGS draws on members’ world-class strengths in academics, integrated research and outreach activities. Today, it connects many more top-flight universities in Europe, Asia and North America. By collaborating closely with industry, it seeks to advance a new paradigm for global sustainability.
Spearheading the initiative, Japanese Professor Kazuo Yamamoto, who deftly combines a faculty position at The University of Tokyo with his duties as Vice President for Resource Development at AIT, said the new Alliance for Global Sustainability–Asia Secretariat bodes well for Thailand and the ASEAN region.
“It is time to expand the activities of AGS into the rest of Asia, and in particular Southeast Asia,” said Prof. Yamamoto. “Asia is where emerging economies are driving global economic growth. But it is also where modern development is placing pressure on the natural environment’s ability to cope.”
Currently, the consortium utilizes the extensive global network of AIT with twenty-seven universities, institutes, and industry partners in Japan. Notable members include The University of Tokyo, Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, Kyoto University, University of Yamanashi, Keio University, IGES, United Nations University, NIES, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
In Thailand, Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University and Kasetsart University have also formed a cluster of like-minded higher education institutions. Other countries are expected to join the movement by setting up national-level networks.
Once operational in late 2014, the AGS–Asia Secretariat at AIT just north of Bangkok will be the nexus for the coordination of all nationally-focused arrangements aligned at a pan-Asian level; connecting Japanese colleagues with Thai partners and other universities and partners around the world. The hub will tap the region’s academic and research institutions, governments and industry committed to supporting sustainability, Prof. Yamamoto said.
A noted environmental engineer who formerly worked as an AGS secretary in Tokyo when it was first established, Prof. Yamamato explained that the alliance studies and applies multi-and interdisciplinary approaches to living and learning in fields such as the natural sciences and technology, agriculture, and medical sciences.
AGS—Asia will have a soft structure, he said, which will make it attractive for disparate faculty, researchers and professionals to participate. It also aims to create an inviting environment where junior and senior academicians will willingly collaborate.
Convinced that AIT is the natural home for the growing alliance, Prof. Yamamoto said it will leverage the institute’s considerable international reach and burnish its strengths in academics and applied research focused on sustainable development outcomes.
AGS—Asia also dovetails with AIT’s flagship effort to transform its verdant campus into a bona fide “living sustainability laboratory”, where concepts learned in the classroom and analyzed in laboratories are practiced everyday by more than 2500 students, faculty and staff.
By complimenting AIT’s existing Center of Sustainable Development in the Context of Climate Change (SDCC), and the institute’s myriad programs, fields of study and centers of excellence, officials expect the AGS—Asia to fuel a regional critical mass of sustainability thinkers and practitioners searching for solutions to one of the greatest challenges facing humanity.
Shawn Kelly is Senior Media Specialist at the Asian Institute of Technology
Photo caption: Prof. Kazuo Yamamoto