JSCE Newsletter No.20, May 2007

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Committee

Newsletter
No. 20 May 2007

New Action Plan to Enhance JSCE’s Visibility
in the International Arena
promotion of international cooperation
2. Dissemination of information andpromotion of the Japanese civilengineering technology to be employedwider in the global community
3. Acquisition of information overseas andsupply it to the public at home
TAKAHASHI Osamu, Fellow Member
Chair, International Activities Committee,
June 2005-May 2007
(Nippon Koei Co., Ltd.)The International Activities Committee(IAC) considers it essential to build theenvironment in which JSCE members
continuously improve their professional
performance and services in and outside Japan,
resulting in making good contributions to thesustainable development of the globalcommunity. In order to attain that more
effectively, the IAC formulated a new action
plan taking into account the achievements andremained issues in the previous “Action planfor JSCE’s internationalization drawn in 2002,
which was publicized in the Civil Engineering,
September 2002. The new action plan wasapproved at the Board Meeting on 23 March2007.
The IAC will take detailed approachesand implement the action plan steadily underthe following slogan and three pillars together
with the JSCE members. Their understanding
and support would be most appreciated.

■ Possible achievements
By implementing the action plan steadily,
the IAC will build access to and fro theinternational arena for the JSCE members toenable them to perform professional duties
both at home and overseas, and as the result,will contribute:● anoverseas society’s sustainable
development by means of developing humanresources, exchanging technical informationand operating projects successfully.

further advancement of civil engineering
at home: promotion of internationalrecognition of civil engineering andpractitioners and expansion of business
operations overseas●*Seamless: the original meaning is having noseams. In this action plan, the term is used to imply
minimizing the differences between the national
and international societies which may influence thecivil engineers who work in those societies.

Outline of the Action Plan

Background to the Formulation of theNew Action Plan

■ Slogan
We shall promote seamless* service acrossborders in the civil engineering field andcontributetoglobal
infrastructuredevelopment.
■ Three pillars
1. Expansion of the JSCE network andThe IAC has taken several approaches
in the framework of the previous action plan:utilizing the experiences of those who haveworked outside the country, disseminating
information timely and widely, introducing
other divisions and committees’ activities,
reviewing the services and benefits to overseas

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JSCE Newsletter No.20, May 2007

members, developing JSCE’s network with theoverseas members who have experienced instudying or working in Japan, improving
international exchange programs, inviting theagreement of cooperation societies in the Asianregionto
Asian
Civil
Engineering
Coordinating Council (ACECC) *.
However, our actions have not produced
fruits as many as we wished for yet, we havejust come to half way to the goal.
In the following year after the previous
action plan was drawn, the JSCE 2005:
Reform Plan for JSCE was published in May.
In the JSCE 2005: Reform Plan, it ispointed out that there are some tasks
unfinished. The advanced Japanese civilengineering technology has not been
introduced to other countries widely enough togain international recognition yet, and this fact
has hindered the JSCE members’ efforts totransfer knowledge and technology toengineers in another country. Besides, theenvironment surrounding us, civil engineers
has been more complicated than ever becauseof such factors as continual reductions inpublic investments, reconsiderations of ODA
activity, rapid increase of investments ininfrastructure construction in China, ASEAN
countries, India and other Asian countries, East
European and Arabic countries and republics
in the Soviet Union, and diversified ordersystems in and outside the country.
*ACECC was launched as an intra-regional
association of civil engineering in the Asian region
with the efforts of ASCE, JSCE and three othersocieties in 1999. Current member societies/
institutions are from seven countries and one
region: USA, Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, VietNam, Australia, Mongolia and Japan. The
association has engaged in wide-ranged activities:
the Great Mekong Sub-region project and tsunami
disaster investigations are examples. It also holds
the triennial international conference called Civil
Engineering Conference in Asian Region(CECAR) to discuss the issues on civil engineering
arisen in those countries.

As talked above, reviewing the lastaction plan, we have identified its outcomes
and remained issues, and gained a direction totake in drawing a new action plan. Whilefollowing the direction set in the past actionplans, we have widened a scope to picture thefuture Japanese civil engineering - thetechnology will have been employed more
widely in infrastructure development in theworld, and the engineers will play a significant
role in the scene by 2020.
2The slogan and three pillars summarize
what we should and would do now for the
future civil engineering.

Slogan and Three pillars
TheadvancedJapanese
civilengineering technology has been introduced toseveral countries through ODA activities andvarious collaborative activities, and morecountries shows interest in acquiring thetechnology.
In order to achieve the aforesaid futureof civil engineering, the JSCE/IAC has tocreate a basis in which Japanese civil engineers
will be able to perform services in education,business, and technical cooperation andsupport without being discouraged by social
differences arisen between their home andother countries. With the slogan, we will moveahead towards the future.
In terms of international contribution,
the Japanese engineers and private sectors areexpected to play an active role in developing
national and regional infrastructures throughproviding various forms of assistance in socialand economic development, poverty reduction,
post-disaster reconstruction and rehabilitationand information exchange. With the aim ofmaking international contribution centering
civil engineering technology, JSCE should
provide the forum where the Society and its
members can explore public’s needs to respondthem properly, make suggestions and advice
on government policies, where the government,
industry and academia can cooperate together
to undertake scholarly activities overseas, andwhereprivate-sector
corporations
cancontribute to the welfare of the world throughbusiness activities.
Accordingly, the Society should
strengthen the three activities, expanding its
network to promote international cooperation,
promoting the Japanese civil engineering
technology to be employed overseas widelyand collecting overseas information todisseminate to public at home. These activities
stand as three pillars of the action plan.
1. Expansion of JSCE’ s Network andPromotion of International Cooperation
It is essential to expand JSCE’s networkby organically liking the personal-levelnetwork built among the members, the networkof foreign students studying in Japan and thereturnees who have studied in Japan, and thenetwork developed through the JSCE members
working overseas together. Also, increasing
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JSCE Newsletter No.20, May 2007

international members and establishingoverseas sections- there is a section in Taiwan,
Korea, UK, Mongolia and Turkey respectively- should be considered in that respect.
Furthermore, joint seminars and othercollaborative activities with the agreement ofcooperation societies, ACECC technicalcommittees’ activities - the Great Mekong
Sub-region project and studies on tsunami
disaster for example, the registration of civilengineering technology to ISO are some of theopportunities that Japanese civil engineers canmake contribution to the world throughworking with engineers from other countries
and regions, and that will assist the Japanese
civil engineers to acquire wider opportunities
to engage in overseas projects.
2. Promotion of the Japanese Civil
Engineering Technology overseas throughInformation Provision
The Japanese civil engineering inseveral disciplines such as tunneling, seismicengineering, bridge engineering, transportation,disastermitigation
andprevention,environmental protection and energy is
acclaimed as the world-class technology;
nevertheless, there are not many occasions thatthe technology is employed in projects in othercountries. Considering that each country has its
own needs for civil engineering technology, it
is not always appropriate to say that theJapanese civil engineering is the best
technology to be applied anywhere.
However, to promote that technology tobe utilized more often in the world,understanding each country’s technologicalneeds, what is called for is providing relevant
information and involving the Japanese civilengineers in introducing the technology. To be
more precise, industry, academia andgovernment have to work together to promote
the technology in translating Japaneseengineering standard specifications, guidelines
and relevant information, locally holding
discussions and symposiums on the relevant
topics to people’s needs, requesting the JSCE
members who have gained experience abroad
use their network.
Besides disseminating information, theJSCE should more actively engages in studies
and reconstruction activities at the event ofnaturaldisasterandstrengthen
thecommunication and collaboration with civilengineers of other countries so as tocontinually create the opportunities in which
the Japanese civil engineering technology isused more and wider in the world.
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3. Provision of International News to Public
It is an important factor that theJapanese civil engineers become interested inwhat is happening outside the country in orderto let them work anywhere in the world,
regardless of whether they are at home orabroad, and for that, it is of great importance tosupply those engineers more information aboutother countries, which can be made with such
examples as introducing reports, papers andother written materials about foreign countries
andtheirpeers
makingsignificant
contributions to overseas projects in JSCE’s
journals, seminars, symposiums, etc. Exposing
the home engineers to the information aboutother countries will get them interested inworking abroad, resulting in expanding civilengineers’ seamless services in and outside thecountry. Also creating discussion forums withinternational students studying in Japan is
another method to push forward the seamlessservice of civil engineers.

Future Civil Engineer characterized in
the Action Plan (Scenario)
Mr. A is a seasoned civil engineer from Japan
who has been working in mainly the Southeastern
Asia for several years in his professional career.
Today he is standing on the platform of the bullet
train running between the countries K and J, who is
one of the guest engineers to the opening ceremony.
While seeing the first train standing by for a whistle
signal for departure, he is having every scene of theconstruction of that train’s railways coming back in
his mind; at the same time, is feeling that all his
effort made for the success of the construction has
been rewarded at this exact moment.
Mr. A, after having worked in field at home,
went to an overseas office of his company andengaged in various constructions such as subways
and expressways more than twenty years. About ten
years ago, he retired from the company to return toJapan. Although having considered going backhome, he chose to stay there, and in the meanwhile,
he got a job offer from a civil engineering
consulting firm because of his managing skills as aproject manager and decided to take it with thehope of enabling to utilize his experience and skills
gained in filed.
After that, he came very busy with the newjob. As getting involved into it, he wondered how
he could further expand his career using thenetwork of contacts he had built through his work
abroad and professional skills and knowledge built
up through the work done in the home country,
which is prone to natural disasters. Then, herecalled that at one time when his qualification as
civil engineer was questioned relating to hisengagement in a project in a certain country, his3

JSCE Newsletter No.20, May 2007

JSCE membership had saved him from theawkward position, and then he visited the JSCE
website to review for the fist time in quite sometime.
“Wow, changed a lot. Much better than theone I used to see,” searching for the information
about the JSCE’s relationship with Country K on
the homepage, he was impressed with the improved
contents. On it, he could learn that the society had
made the agreement of cooperation with a civilengineering association and established a section inCountry K as well, in which he was residing, andsince then, the Society’s research committee andthe civil engineering association occasionally held
joint seminars between them, and that the Society
published design standards and specifications inEnglish and sold overseas. “It is impressive that theJSCE has been making good efforts to expand itsactivity. But why have I not ever heard much about
it? I don’t understand it.”
Recently, the Country K has been building
close economic ties with its neighbor country J, andas that so, more demands have arisen for theconstruction of express train to run between thesetwo countries. Especially, among the countries’
civil engineers, a construction of bullet train
railways has been seriously discussed; however,
due to the technical difficulties of the long and big
tunnel situated on the route and soft ground underthe mouth of a river, the construction seems havenot progressed as it should be.
“The construction in the Country K, whose climate
and geographical features are similar to those ofJapan, could be completed with the Japanese civilengineering
technology,
overcoming
thosedifficulties.”
Then, Mr. K questioned himself how theJapanese civil engineering technology would beable to contribute to the construction of bullet train
railways to be run between the two countries, andcame to the answer that he would take actions
centering around JSCE to assist that railway
construction. For example, he organized a
symposium on bullet train with the cooperation of
the Country K’s civil engineering association andJSCE via his old friend Mr. C and contacted acollege professor via the Society to invite to thecountry as a lecturer to discuss the Japanese design
standards, who was known well among the students
from the country to Japan. Thanks to more Japanese
civil engineers working at home and abroad thanever, the efforts of his had been answered in theform of cooperation and assistance rendered frommany people and organizations. While feelingappreciation to them, Mr. A recalled the first time
when he left the country to seek for a professional
career overseas. Furthermore, due to the Japaneseadvanced skills of geological survey andcooperative railway engineers, which made it
possible to attain innovative approaches to design
long and big tunnels in the mountainous areas andbridges on soft ground around the river mouth,
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based on the studies carried out in cooperation
between colleges in Country J and Japan, theconstruction of bullet train railways came into view.
The two countries came to have the bullet train
railways to be laid between them with theassistance given by JSCE and other organizations
from other countries after some years at last. It wasexactly what Mr. A wished for. The Japanese civilengineering technology was highly rated, which
had developed under the similar environment to thetwo countries’; as a result, Japanese contractors
were entrusted the task of planning and designing
the railways where European counterparts werethought stronger out there, and made a great
contribution to the development of the countries in
the Southeastern Asia region.
In the construction of the bullet train railways,
many civil engineers came from Japan and manyother countries to work together and share
information with each other. The information
including the Japanese latest engineering
technology brought with the construction wastransferred to the engineers from the countries Kand J successfully.
The today’s inauguration of the bullet train
symbolizes exactly the civil engineers’ cooperation
beyond borders. Looking it, Mr. A is convinced that
the Japanese civil engineers, continuously
contributing to the sustainable development of theSoutheastern region, would take on an increasingly
important role, and he could not help feeling proudof himself being one of those engineers.
*This article is excerpt from the JSCE monthly
magazine Civil Engineering, Vol. 92, June 2007.

Publications
ARTICLES (From Feb. 2007 to May 2007)
JSCE Guidelines for Concrete No.10:
EXAMPLE OF DESIGN CALCULATIONS BASEDON JSCE STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS FOR
CONCRETESTRUCTURES–REINFORCED
CONCRETE SUPERSTRUCTURE OF OPEN-TYPE
WHARF- March 2007, Pages 98, Price: JPY1,890-,
ISBN4-8106-0558-7
Journal of Global Environmental Engineering vol.12:
March 2006, Pages 114, Price: JPY6,000-, ISSN 13411268
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to:Editorial Board:International Activities Committee, JSCE

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