Activities

2026.6.17

RENKEI (UK/Japan) Joint Workshop: Session “How do we see the ocean space through different lenses?” hosted by AIMEC members

RENKEI is a partnership between leading research-intensive universities in the United Kingdom (6) and Japan (5), collaborating to strengthen and further the knowledge exchange and research collaboration between the UK and Japan, particularly in the higher education sector. First established in 2012, the partnership will be celebrating its 15-year anniversary in 2027.

The key objectives of the partnership are:
-To strengthen relationships between institutions and individuals in the Higher Education sector in the UK and Japan
-To further knowledge exchange and collaborations between RENKEI Partners
-To cultivate and nurture UK-Japan collaborations of the future, by empowering the early career researchers of today to become tomorrow’s international leaders

RENKEI was a 5-day event to which WPI-AIMEC participated as host for one of the days: Marine Studies session. The event included a panelist discussion followed by a workshop activity. A total of 30-40 early career researchers were in attendance. Three early- to mid-career researchers participated as panelists in the panel discussion led by WPI-AIMEC Director Prof. Toshio Suga (Tohoku University): WPI-AIMEC Postdoctoral Fellows Batdulam Battulga and Jimena Rodriguez (Tohoku University), and WPI-AIMEC Researcher Gerlien Verhaegen (JAMSTEC).

The purpose of this session was to better understand where the perceptions of ocean space converge or diverge among biologists, ecologists, coastal/ocean modelers, and other research communities.

The “Bold-idea” Brainstorming event, facilitated by WPI-AIMEC Program Coordinator Alan Yee (Tohoku University), was an interactive session that combined researchers from 11 universities and disciplines (ocean space, outer space, international law) in developing ideas for new fields of research, in particular remote sensing.

WPI-AIMEC strongly supports the internationalization efforts of Tohoku University. The RENKEI program offers potential seed-funding for researchers to explore new areas of research which may be beneficial to Japan and the UK. The event provided our researchers with the opportunity to think about how their disciplines could be combined with other disciplines. WPI-AIMEC looks forward to continued discussions with researchers from the UK research community.