Greeting
Greeting from the APA President (2022-23)
Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka
Hiroshi MIYASAKA
APA was founded in 2002 and has continued its activities, such as promotion of co-operation between the Association members, co-ordination of photochemical meetings in Asia and Oceania, awarding to photochemists and education of young members. At present, 16 Councilors representing 8 regions and more than 1300 members are contributing to the activity. We are deeply obliged to all the members and, especially, to pioneers who laid the groundwork for today’s prosperity.
The first Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Conference (APC) was held at Hong Kong in 1996, 6 years before the establishment of APA. This conference prompted the organization of APA. Since then, the conference has been held once every three years till 2008 and then biannually from 2010 onwards. Although the tough situation in these years made a delay of the APC 2020 at Seoul, we could open APC again in 2021 and enjoyed many nice lectures and discussion in the WEB style. We deeply appreciate to the effort of Korean members for their organization and arrangement of the conference.
In these 20-30 years, the level of scientific research including our field in the Asian and Oceanian regions has improved greatly, and many excellent research results have been reported from many of these regions. At the same time, the last 20-30 years were an era in which the importance of photochemical research has grown tremendously. As we all know, environmental and energy problems are quite important issues in the global level. Photochemistry is regarded as one of the research fields which could contribute to the solution of these issues. Of course, research fields of photochemistry are wide and involve various subjects not only directly relating to the environmental and energy problems. I think each research subject should be properly developed to contribute to the progress in science and technology for our future, while addressing basic and applied problems.
Generally, the development of science is strongly driven by competition and collaboration among scientists in different regions. I believe APA can continue to provide a nice platform for the collaboration and competition. Moreover, not only research exchanges among established scientists but also mutual educational supports for students would provide us a bright future.
The next APC will be held at Melbourne in November 2023. APA invite all Asian and Oceanian photochemists to support this event and I hope to see as many of you there as possible to contribute to the continuing exchange of science, culture and ideas that will further strengthen photochemistry.
