Global COE Program - Kyoto University - In Search of Sustainable Humanosphere in Asia and Africa

Kaoru Sugihara  
Global COE Program Convener, Center for Southeast Asian Studies

 This program has been created to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies on sustainable development in Asia and Africa from a global, long-term perspective. We put forward a new paradigm of sustainable humanosphere, to activate the dialogue between specialists of Asian and African area studies, and scientists working on frontier technology.

 We seek to come up with a framework under which to address such vital issues as the impact of global warming upon the local societies of Asia and Africa, and to suggest a sustainable path of local and regional development.

 The Center for Southeast Asian Studies, organizer institution of this program, represents a long tradition of area studies at Kyoto University with strong interdisciplinary orientation. Building on the 21st Century COE program (2002-2007), run by the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies and CSEAS, this program inherits the fieldwork-oriented postgraduate education system. In addition, we work with specialists in wood science, material science, atmospheric science, space technology and information technology at the Research Institute of Sustainable Humanosphere, to extend the scope of our scientific investigation. 

 By bringing the knowledge of frontier science and technology into contact with the conventional area studies disciplines of ecology, politics and economics, sociology and anthropology, history, and medical science, this program aims to train a new generation of area studies specialists and scientists equipped with a more comprehensive range of humanities, social science and science disciplines than hitherto possible. The outcome of this research will be disseminated through publications in English and in Japanese, and in some critical cases in several other Asian languages.