The International Academic Forum
 | |
| Abbreviation | IAFOR |
|---|---|
| Motto |
"International, Intercultural, Interdisciplinary" "Asia's Think Tank" |
| Formation | 2009 |
| Type | Think tank |
| Headquarters | Nagoya, Japan |
Chairman, IAB Executive Director |
Stuart Picken Joseph Haldane |
| Website | www.iafor.org |
The International Academic Forum, abbreviated to IAFOR is a politically independent Japan-based think tank, which is involved in the organizing of academic conferences, publications, research and consulting. The organization holds conferences in Japan, North America, the UK and Dubai. Its motto is "International, Interdisciplinary, Intercultural" and IAFOR's key areas of study center around Education, Language Learning, Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Psychology and the Behaviour Sciences, and Sustainability, Energy and the Environment.
History
The International Academic Forum was founded in Nagoya in 2009 "to provide an opportunity for serious and thoughtful exchange between academics, members of the global business community, and practitioners in the fields of human endeavor that linked these groups together".[1] The first international conference event organized was the Asian Conference on Education 2009, and as of 2014 IAFOR currently runs over thirty academic conference events annually in Asia, Europe and North America.
IAFOR's main office is in Nagoya, Japan.
Activities
IAFOR's main activities are the organization and administration of conferences and associated publications. It organizes interdisciplinary conferences in partnership with some of the world's leading universities.
IAFOR organizes competitions, such as the IAFOR International Documentary Film Awards,[2] and the Vladimir Devidé haiku award, an open competition in association with the Haiku International Association and the World Haiku Association.[3] This was founded in 2010 by then Croatian Ambassador to Japan, and noted haiku poet, Drago Štambuk.
Partners
IAFOR's events are organized in conjunction with some of the world's major universities, who help design the academic program of the events. Current university partners include Auburn University (USA), Barcelona University (Spain), Birkbeck, Virginia Tech (USA), University of London (UK), The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (Hong Kong), The Hong Kong Institute of Education (Hong Kong), Lehigh University (USA), La Trobe University (Australia), Monash University (Australia),The National Institute of Education (Singapore), URBAN-INCERC (Romania), The National University of Cordoba (Argentina), The National University of Tainan (Taiwan), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Waseda University (Japan), and Zagreb University (Croatia). Current institutional partners include, Merrill Lynch (USA) The European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD - Belgium), The Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI - Belgium), The HOPE International Development Agency (Japan), The United Nations World Food Programme (Japan and Korea), The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO - Japan), and The Universities Fighting World Food Hunger Programme (USA).
People
The President of IAFOR is Dr Joseph Haldane. The Chairman is the Reverend Professor Stuart D. B. Picken, who is also chairman of the Japan Society of Scotland.
IAFOR's activities and events are shaped by its network of international advisers, who sit on the International Advisory Board. The board is chaired by the Reverend Professor Stuart D. B. Picken and includes Don Brash (New Zealand economist and politician), Lord Charles Bruce (Patron, Japan Society of Scotland), Michael A. Cusumano (US academic), Michael Hudson (U.S. economist and historian), Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd (UK academic), Professor Richard Roth (Senior Associate Dean, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University), Drago Štambuk (Croatian ambassador and poet), Professor Arthur Stockwin (Founding Director of the Nissan Institute for Japanese Studies & Emeritus Professor, The University of Oxford), Mary Stuart (Vice-Chancellor of Lincoln University, UK), Professor Svetlana Ter Minasova (President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University), Linda Toyo Obayashi (Senior Mediation Officer, The World Bank Group), and Yozo Yokota (Legal Academic and former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar).
Publications
IAFOR publishes twelve independently edited peer-reviewed journals, associated with the affiliated conferences. Authors of journal articles are not charged for inclusion in IAFOR journals.[4]
Eye Magazine[5] is an academic magazine, published four times a year, with a focus on politics, history, economics, education and culture.
All IAFOR publications are open source and are made available free of charge through the IAFOR site.