The Arctic research project of ArCS will have its sunset on March 2020 after the project duration of five years. One of important objectives was to deliver enough information to policy maker and society in order for Japan to lead the international discussion concerning a sustainable use of the Arctic.
When I was assigned to be the project director of ArCS, I thought there were two very important points of this project. One was to awaken interests of taxpayers on the Arctic, and to notice the importance of arctic research for Japan even though the Arctic was located far from Japan. Another was to carry out basic and variety of research to integrate their results for powerful information.
During these five years, the points mentioned above were kept well under strong efforts of researchers and administrators. Details of such efforts can be traced in this blog and also leaflets issued occasionally. And finally, those efforts yielded Japan’s host of the 3rd Arctic Science Ministerial in 2020, future construction of Arctic research vessel, and the lunch of post-ArCS project with bigger budget than ArCS.
From now on, Japan’s Arctic research will be more important as human-social activity and international collaboration expands more in the Arctic. This means that scientific research will be expected to play a bigger role in the arctic societal/policy decision-making.
I hope that Arctic research continues to make steady progresses under these situations in future without losing its sublime deed.
Thank you for your tremendous supports to ArCS for these five years!
Masao Fukasawa (ArCS PD)
