The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT) and six leading research institutions, including Kyushu University’s International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER), presented the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) at the 2012 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting held in Vancouver, BC, Canada from February 16 to 20. Over the course of the three-day exhibition during the meeting, representatives from the ministry and WPI centers* engaged a diverse audience at Japan pavilion.

AAAS, founded in 1848, an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. This is the 178th anniversary of the AAAS annual meeting.

The conference theme was “Flattening the World: Building a Global Knowledge Society.” Nearly 170 symposia were categorized as climate, environment, energy, development, collaboration, discovery, communication, education, policy, food, health, culture and information. They are both global in their scope and profoundly interconnected. Sallie Greenberg, I²CNER Satellite Institution Principal Investigator of University of Illinois, gave a lecture entitled “Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage: A Global Solution to a Global Challenge,” followed by an active exchange of opinions.

About 11,000 attendees were participated in the meeting – 2,700 of them visited Japan pavilion, and about 700 were reporters and public information officers from across the globe.

(Vancouver Convention Centre)

(Plenary Lecture)

Report : PDF (Kyoto University iCeMS)

More detail (Kyoto University iCeMS)

WPI centers:

•     Tohoku University Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR)
•     The National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) International Center for Materials
•     Nanoarchitectonics (MANA)
•     The University of Tokyo Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU)
•     Kyoto University Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS)
•     Osaka University Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC)
•     Kyushu University International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I²CNER)

	(WPI joint booth)	(S. Greenberg at symposium)	(Family Science Days)