International Science Council Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ISC ROAP)

The International Science Council – Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ISC-ROAP) promotes the development of science throughout Asia and the Pacific. The organisation helps strengthen the voice of scientist from the developing countries in this region, and increased the value of science and evidence-based decision making.

This Regional Office was inaugurated on 19 September 2006 and hosted by Malaysian government since then. The hosting of the regional office is based on five-year agreement between Malaysian Government and ISC headquarters in Paris. Funding for ISC ROAP is supported by Malaysian government and ISC. The term for Malaysia to host ISC-ROAP ended in 2021 after 15 years hosting it.

This year, ISC-ROAP together with ASM and the Mahathir Science Award Foundation (MSAF) organised a number of programmes. Among the highlights are:

1. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Session at Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress 2021 (SRI2021)
   On 14 June 2021, the IRDR ICoE Taipei convened a panel at the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress 2021 (SRI2021). Participants came together in a forum entitled “To Distill from Experiences of Stakeholders, Scalable Strategies for Disaster Risk Reduction and Societal Resilience Building”. The forum served as a platform for the participants to share their knowledge and best practices.
2. International Day of Forest
   On 23 March 2021, ISC-ROAP, MSAF and ASM partnered with the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University to jointly organise a webinar themed “Tropical Forests Under Threat: Finding Our Way Out of the Woods” in conjunction with the International Day of Forests. Webinar attendees came from 18 different countries and indicated that they liked the multi-pronged approach of the webinar towards forest restoration and preservation, which covered community involvement, green finance and agroforestry.
3. World Health Day
   The Webinar was organised together with MSAF and ASM in conjunction with World Health Day. The Webinar themed “Towards a Fairer and Healthier Tropics” was organised on 7 April 2021. The moderator summarised that at the local level, tropical nations have the capacity to lead their own change. Meanwhile, at the global level, health policy reforms require us to recognise that health and equity is a political, scientific, and ethical choice that can be achieved by a coalition of the willing, the able and the relevant. Overall, the webinar was a success in bringing people from 25 countries in the interest of a fairer and healthier tropics.
4. World Ocean Day
   In conjunction with World Ocean Day, ISC-ROAP, MSAF and ASM co-organised a webinar that addressed “Ocean Life and Livelihoods in The Tropics”. This year’s World Ocean Day sheds light on the wonders of the ocean and how it is our life source, supporting humanity and every other organism on earth. Some of the key points raised in the discussion were the vulnerability and resiliency of coastal communities in response to climate change, municipal fisheries and aquaculture development for sustainable marine resource management. The panellists also underscored the importance of generating collective impact at all levels by establishing an effective national ocean policy and governance for the tropical ocean. Towards that effort, the UN Ocean Decade could be used as an action framework consisting of transdisciplinary priority areas relating to the ocean for the Tropics.
5. International Day of Biodiversity – Naming Nature 2
   Naming Nature 2 was held on 21 May 2021 via Zoom in conjunction with the International Day of Biodiversity. The webinar was jointly organised by ASM, MSAF and ISC. Two hundred and eighty people from 12 countries (Australia, Bangladesh, Denmark, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, UK, USA) had registered for the webinar.

Malaysia through ASM will continue become the member of ISC to participate in important scientific conversations and activities, to showcase national scientific contributions at the international level, and to connect to each other and to influential networks worldwide.