Conference "The Relevance of Area Studies for the Sciences and Public Policy - Examples from Europe & Asia"

Social sciences, and even more so natural sciences and engineering, tend to neglect local conditions, i.e. how ecological, social, political or economic issues are perceived and addressed in the specific context of a country or region and how solutions are sought for and implemented. Area studies can correct these shortcomings, because they pay close attention to local conditions and regional differences. Nevertheless, it is far from common sense that area studies specialists and researchers from other sciences collaborate.

Our conference aims at highlighting possible contributions of area studies to the sciences, innovation and public policy by discussing concrete examples in the following highly relevant thematic fields: Ideological and social forces in the era of globalization, innovation, ecology and energy transition, health and food security, engineering, robotics and IoT, and public and foreign policy.

Date: 15. November 2016, 13:30～17:00

Organizers: GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Member of the Leibniz Association; The University of Tokyo: Network for Education and Research on Asia (ASNET), Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA); German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo;

Cooperation by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB)

Admission free, Registration required