Past Initiatives

PKU Medical City

PKU Medical City was a medical collaboration among IARU universities. Workshops on different collaborative medical projects occurred annually at PKU.

"Real-life Medicine (RLM)" was the initial project of this collaboration. The RLM project provides a big data anlysis platform on which life science research, translational medicine and clinical trials can be conducted. Further, mHealth policies of the member countries have been compared and the challenges and futher development of mHealth discussed.

About Peking University Medical City:

Peking University Medical City (PKUMC) is located at the Northwest skirt of Beijing, twenty minutes drive from downtown. It serves patients from Beijing, the surrounding regions and all across the country. It is in the second phase of Life Science Park. The first phase of the development of the Life Science Park has fully completed and has full occupancy of globally renowned life science enterprises, such as Novo Nordisk, Denmark CCBR, German Herauers, US Bioduro etc. Providing healthcare services to full life cycle of all people with the most advanced facilities and services is the mission of PKUMC. 

The 120-acre PKUMC is a premier location for medical care, research and education. PKU International Hospital (PKUIH), PKU Mental Health Hospital and PKU Rehabilitation Hospital are three hospitals within PKUMC providing medical care services. It is approved for 2,370 total inpatient beds. PKU Care industrial park, commercial office buildings and PKU Pharmacology Research Center provide environment for research and innovation to fulfill its mission.

Sustainable Cities Research Project

"Towards Sustainable Cities" is an initiative to stimulate activity in the IARU Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) Global Change Project through a collaborative interdisciplinary partnership.

The projects have focused on integrative cross-cutting questions in relation to sustainability in cities such as:

• What is the relationship between food production and land use in city regions?
• How will the flux of GHGs change depending on the land use change of cities?
• What is the relative food security in food export and import dependent cities?

The demonstration project approach has created a new research community by collaborating on three interlinked sub-projects, each led by one IARU partner. The three sub-projects are:

• Food Flows and Ecosystem Services, lead by the Australian National University
• Low Carbon Cities, lead by The University of Tokyo
• Land Use and Ecosystem Function, lead by the University of Copenhagen

Regional Perspectives on Global Security

Regional Perspectives on Global Security investigated international security as it expanded and deepened within the regional global nexus. The research initiative incorporated multidisciplinary approaches, human security as a policy dynamic, order-building and rising powers and asymmetrical security. The Security Research group has convened or co-convened workshops, established a visiting scholars program and has produced several edited volumes and numerous scholarly papers which found their way into professional journals. ANU, Todai, Beida and NUS remain involved in the MacArthur Foundation's Asia Security Initiative and individual scholars who have initially networked through the IARU projects initiated during 2007 and 2008 remain active in interacting with each other through these networks.

Culture and Citizenship: Towards a Civic Pluralism

The workshop was held in Copenhagen on 2 November 2009 covering such topics as culturally defined citizenship rights, multiculturalism, migrant workers and religious diasporas. Specific examples were drawn from such diverse cases as Latin America, North America, Europe, Singapore and Australia. One doctoral student from Copenhagen and one post-doctoral student from Singapore also participated in the meeting.

  Human Mobility: New Opportunities, Inequalities and Challenges to Human Security

Human mobility has soared as millions of people throughout the world have come to see migration as an avenue towards improvement. These global movements constitute new social developments and formations which challenge policy makers and organizations seeking to develop policies to manage mobility and its social and economic impacts. This research project examined the perspectives on global migration dynamics. To improve our understanding of human mobility, we need to fundamentally rethink the central assumptions on the forces that drive global migration.