The RUB Japan Science Days 2018 open a new international format at Ruhr University Bochum that offers a platform for dialogue with its international partner universities.
This new platform will serve to initiate, diversify and expand sustainable international cooperation with selected universities on multiple levels. This year – honoring a topic that is presently hotly debated in Japan and also in Germany – the first Science Days are devoted to Society 5.0 – Chances and Risks of Digital Transformation and the Responsibility of Universities.
The aim is to include manifold subject areas and interconnect different levels and scopes of partnership in the fields of research, teaching and transfer. In lectures, workshops, discussions and talks, researchers, executives and administrators from Ruhr University and its partners get the chance to explore options of co-operations in various fields.
From July 5 – 7 2018, top researchers, presidents, vice presidents and executives from university management and administration from the Ruhr University Bochum and its Japanese Partner Universities University of Tokyo, Osaka University, the University of Tsukuba as well as top researchers from other Japanese Universities meet to promote the fruitful exchange among them.
Tremendous opportunities – tremendous responsibility
The digital transformation involves all aspects of human life and is driven by innovative technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence as well as by the continued progress of IT. It harbours significant change – regarding both technology and society. This will provide our societies and individuals with tremendous opportunities – smart cities, smart homes, smart care etc. Yet, at the same time, unprecedented safety, legal, privacy and ethical issues need to be addressed in order to fully benefit from the given chances.
At the top of the scientific and political agenda
Digital transformation is at the top of the scientific and political agenda in both Japan and Germany. It is, furthermore, one of the central interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary networking fields of Ruhr-University Bochum's research, teaching and transfer activities.
This led to the choice of the topic for the first RUB Science Days with three renowned Japanese universities. Keynote speeches from leading scientists from RUB and its Japanese partner universities, scientific workshops and panel discussions promise to provide valuable insights not only into the general aspects of Society 5.0 but, in particular, into the specific role and responsibility of universities and their strategies in dealing with them.
Central research topic at Ruhr University Bochum
Digital Transformation is one of the central strategic and research topics at the Ruhr University Bochum and its associated institutions: competencies are combined and interconnected, for instance, in the areas of Cyber Security and Privacy, Industry 4.0, Work 4.0 as well as Cognitive Computer Science. Research on Digital Transformation at the Ruhr University Bochum at a glance:
- The interdisciplinary Horst Goertz Institute for IT Security (HGI) was founded at Ruhr University Bochum in 2003, and covers nearly all aspects of IT security, from basic research in cryptography to internet security, security for the Internet of Things, usability and data protection. The regional graduate school Sec-Human is part of the HGI and focusses on security for people in cyberspace. Over the next four years, the HGI will be coordinating the state-wide graduate college Human Centered Systems Security – North Rhine-Westphalian Experts on Research in Digitalization (NERD NRW).
- Ruhr University Bochum was one of the founding members of The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), which has been located in Bochum since 2017 and is dedicated to the analysis of the political, social and economic implications of digitalisation.
- A new research building for Smart Product Service Systems (ZESS) is currently being planned at the Ruhr University Bochum. Along with other research institutions and innovative enterprises, ZESS will form a new knowledge exchange hub for research and industry in Bochum.
- Recently, the Ruhr University Bochum has been successful in attracting funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which is funding 18 new tenure track professorships for Junior Academics at Ruhr University Bochum. Five of those professorships will be allocated to the field of Computer Sciences whereas the remaining 13 professorship positions shall contribute to Ruhr University Bochum's thematic and interdisciplinary networking field Digital Transformation of the Economy and Society.
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Invitation
Journalists are cordially invited to attend the opening of the RUB Japan Science Days on July 5, 2018, 12:00 to 21:00, including the Institutional and Funding Fair, the Keynote Speeches, the Panel Discussion Society 5.0 – Chances and Risks of Digital Transformation and the Responsibility of Universities and the opening of the exhibition Krupp instead of Cologne Cathedral: the Iwakura Mission in Germany 1873.
Media Contact
Iris Vernekohl
iris.vernekohl@uv.rub.de
49-234-322-1754
@ruhrunibochum
http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/rjsd2018/program/index.html.en