[JSPS Asian core program on cutting-edge organic chemistry in Asia]

The vision to establish this program was to establish and extend cooperative research efforts beyond the intraregional boundaries. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) has taken an initiative to support an Asian Core Program, which aims to create world-class research hubs within the Asian region and foster the development of the next generation of leading researchers by establishing sustainable collaborative relations among research and educational institutions in Asian countries. Nagoya University strongly supports and is the Core University of this program with Minoru Isobe and Toshio Nishikawa serving as the coordinator. Representing their respective countries/regions, Guo-Qiang Lin and Zhu-Jun Yao (China, Shanghai), Sunggak Kim and Kwan-Soo Kim (Korea), Somsak Ruchirawat (Thailand), and Chun-Chen Liao and Biing-Jiun Uang (China, Taipei) share in the vision to enhance collaborative efforts. As coordinators they have invited many cooperative universities/institutes in their home countries/regions to start the network since 2005. Singapore (Tech-Peng Loh) has joined lately, and Hong Kong is represented by Henry Wong. All cooperating regions also agreed to support this program by acquiring matching funds for the duration of the program, that is, until March 2010. This program is jointly supported by the JSPS (Japan), the NNSFC (China, Beijing), the NSCT (China, Taipei), the KOSEF/CMDS (Korea), the NRCT/CRI (Thailand), and the IUPAC for an East Asian Network Task group project. Pauline Chiu takes the general secretary work. The initiation of the Asian Core Program and the Inauguration Conference (The 0th International Conference on Cutting-Edge Organic Chemistry in Asia; ICCEOCA-0) was held in Nagoya (2006. 3), which was followed by ICCEOCA-1 in Okinawa, Japan (2006. 10), ICCEOCA-2 in Busan, Korea (2007. 9), ICCEOCA-3 in Hangzhou, China (2008. 10). A post symposium of ICCEOCA-1 was held in Hsinchu, Taiwan (2006. 10), and a satellite symposium of ICCEOCA-2 was held in Bangkok, Thailand (2007. 11). Future international conferences will be held in Bangkok (2009. 11) and Taipei (2010).