Lead institution:
Japan Drilling Earth Science Consortium (J-DESC) – Japan
Through scientific drilling, scientists have obtained underground samples and mined various important knowledge on natural hazards including earthquakes and tsunamis, climate change, and volcanic eruptions.
For example, sediment cores obtained by scientific ocean drilling have contributed as paleoclimate archives to reveal the processes and mechanisms that drive global climate change. The international framework of IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program), has been registered as a Contribution of Decade Action. As the Japanese representative scientific community of IODP, J-DESC (Japan Drilling Earth Science Consortium: J-DESC, established in 2003) will contribute to the Ocean Decade promotion as one of the “platforms” providing communication among scientists, students, and the general public.
J-DESC has actively engaged in hypothesis-driven, bottom-up, and international science collaborations through open communication with international colleagues. J-DESC has been promoting its science by organizing workshops for scientists and students, and symposiums for wider members of societies including the general public, decision-makers, children, etc. Also, J-DESC has been providing hands-on training courses to early career ocean professionals (ECOPs) and students who are not familiar with the scientific ocean drilling and its science. In 2019, J-DESC made this core school open to Asian societies as an international core school and received nine international students and ECOPs as trainees.
In addition, J-DESC recently started a new program for providing graduate students with the opportunity to participate in scientific drilling expeditions along with scientists for opening the eyes of students with real experience to get on board. About 10 days of expedition participation is open to graduate students in Japanese universities. Nine students got on board with this new program in 2021, the real experiences were extremely stimulating to the students, and they enhanced their literacy of ocean sciences.
Above examples are all J-DESC’s established and active paths to the wide range of stakeholders in Japan and Asia, J-DESC aims to expand its function to be a promotion/communication body (i.e. “”platform”) for the Ocean Decade in the Decade Contributions by facilitating public scientific communication, as well as promoting peer-to-peer collaboration and mentoring. J-DESC will seek to further expand its activity to advance literacy of ocean science in general for the next decade.
Start Date: 29/11/2022
End Date: 30/11/2024
Lead Contact: Yuki Morono (morono@jamstec.go.jp)