Meetings

The Society of Inorganic Materials, Japan (SIMJ) has announced a prestigious international book initiative entitled “Sustainable Materials for a Better Environment: Advances in Gypsum, Lime, Cement, and Other Inorganic Materials” to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its founding. The initiative was officially announced at the Board of Directors’ executive meeting held on November 26^th, 2025. The project aims to bring together leading researchers and experts from Japan and around the world within industry and academia to showcase recent advancements in environmentally responsible inorganic materials.

The Oxoate Ceramics Research Association of the Ceramic Society of Japan has announced the launch of a major international edited book project, Functional Oxoate Ceramics and Glasses: Current Progress and Future Perspectives, to be published by Jenny Stanford Publishing. Officially unveiled at the 38th Fall Meeting at Gunma University, the volume brings together leading researchers from Japan and abroad to present the latest advances in functional oxoate ceramics and glass science.

Building on global momentum following the United Nations’ 2022 International Year of Glass, the book integrates fundamental science, emerging technologies, and future perspectives with a strong focus on sustainability. Topics span interdisciplinary applications including next-generation energy storage, thin-film glass technologies for electronic devices, biomaterials such as β-tricalcium phosphate ceramics, and durable glass materials for nuclear waste management. Edited by Professor Toshinori Okura of Kogakuin University and Santosh Miryala, the volume aims to serve as a comprehensive reference for researchers, engineers, and graduate students worldwide.

A public YouTube recording highlights how nature-based biomass solutions could deliver gigaton-scale carbon removal while supporting sustainable development

Pharma.AI Q4 Winter Launch Recap: Revolutionizing drug discovery with cutting-edge AI innovations, Accelerating the Path to Pharmaceutical Superintelligence

The Bharat Innovates 2026 National Basecamp was inaugurated at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), marking a significant milestone in India’s efforts to identify, strengthen, and globally position its most promising deep-tech innovations. Held from December 18 to 20, 2025, the three-day event brings together approximately 400 startups and research-led innovations that have been shortlisted through a rigorous national screening process. Organised under the aegis of the Ministry of Education and the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India, and coordinated jointly by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) and IITGN, the event saw attendance from scientific luminaries, founders, business leaders, venture capitalists, investors, and sci-tech enthusiasts. 

Speakers at the inaugural session highlighted the programme’s role in strengthening research commercialisation, industry–academia linkages, and policy-backed innovation ecosystems. The closed-door pitching sessions and open deep tech exhibition showcased Innovations spanning 13 strategic domains, including AI, semiconductors, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and space technologies. The Basecamp serves as a critical mentoring and evaluation stage ahead of the International Showcase to be held next year in France, where Indian technologies will take their place on the global stage. 

The LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) convened the first in-person meeting of the recently launched Lancet Commission on Transforming Primary Health Care (PHC) in the Post-COVID-19 Era in mid-November 2025. The event brought together leading researchers and international experts in PHC sciences, health policy, family medicine, nursing and public health from all seven continents with a balanced representation of gender and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to chart a bold agenda for rebuilding equitable, people-centred and digitally enabled PHC systems worldwide. HKUMed will host a series of ongoing expert discussions and aims to publish the Commission’s landmark paper within the next year.

To advance global collaboration in lunar science, the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (DEPS-HKU) and the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGG-CAS) jointly hosted the International Lunar Sample Research Symposium 2025 from 21 to 24 November. The event attracted 230 participants from China, the USA, France, the UK, Japan, India, and other regions around the world.

Compared with white patients, Black patients with an aggressive form of leukemia--called acute myeloid leukemia (AML)--were on average more than five years younger at diagnosis and more than 30 percent more likely to die of their disease; that is according to a new analysis of data led by University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers. The study, supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), also found that Black patients were more than 20 percent more likely to die of any cause over the 34-year study period. Among patients with a mutation in their cancer cells that is generally associated with more favorable outcomes from treatment, survival for Black patients was less than half that of white patients.

The Safeguard final conference will bring together project partners and stakeholders to discuss the latest Safeguard findings and reflect on future directions beyond the project’s end.