The IAFOR Silk Road Initiative had its first pilot roundtable meeting today, attended by some thirty academics from around the world, and chaired by IAFOR Chairman, Dr Joseph Haldane and his co-director colleagues at Osaka University’s OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre. The scope of the initiative was discussed, as was leveraging IAFOR’s existent global network of individuals, institutions and events, in order to encourage collaborations with other networks.
The meeting included academics from the US, the UK, France, Russia, Serbia, Japan, the Philippines, and also included Dean Michael Anthony C. Vasco from the University of Santo Tomas, Asia’s oldest university, who talked about the recent opening of the university’s vast manuscript archive to researchers, and the opportunities this affords.
Hosted by The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities 2017 (ACAH2017), the roundtable focussed on cultural and historical exchanges and encounters, as well as the great shared philosophical and artistic flows between east and west.