The Second Asian Population Forum was held at Shanghai University on October 11-12, 2019. Participants included more than 80 internationally renowned demographers from 28 universities and research institutes, including institutions in Australia, Austria, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea sent four experts to take part in the Forum and related workshops.
The Asian Population Forum is an academic exchange and cooperation platform established by the Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI) and Shanghai University for the member organizations of the Asian Metacenter for Population and Sustainable Development and for the larger Asian demographic research community. The Second Forum consisted of six panels: Population, Development, and Environment; Application of Demographic Dynamics and Human Capital Models in Development Analysis; Priorities for International Migration Research in Asia; International Migration; Internal Migration; and Urbanization in Asia.
Dr. Liu Changsheng, President of Shanghai University, spoke at the opening ceremony. He delivered a warm welcome to guests and briefly elaborated the history of Shanghai University and its development goals. He pointed out that Shanghai University has 26 schools and 86 majors and emphasizes interdisciplinary research. It was to further interdisciplinary research, he suggested, that Shanghai University invited Dr. Leiwen Jiang, Dr. Samir KC, Dr. Guy Abel, Dr. Yu Zhu and other demographers to establish the Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI) at the university. President Liu pledged that Shanghai University would continue to support the development of the center as a world-class academic research institution and an international platform for regional cooperation and academic exchange.
Attendees of the Forum also learned about the milestones ADRI has passed over the last four years. ADRI scholars have developed and refined models and methods for the exploration of population and environment, human capital analysis, population prediction, and international and internal migration. ARDI scholars have authored or co-authored more than 50 English articles in international journals. Among them, two appeared in the leading international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In addition, ADRI became the headquarters of the Asian Metacenter for Population and Sustainable Development. The Metacenter is a research network of 48 demographic research institutions around the world. It serves as a platform for the organization of large-scale regional cooperative research and holds various training workshops and schools. Through these programs and joint projects, the Metacenter and its members lead the direction and advancement of demographic research in Asia.
