Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences held the 1st JBNU Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium on October 20 in Conference Room 824 of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building at JBNU.

This colloquium was organized to examine changes in local communities resulting from population change and to promote scholarly exchange and collaboration among researchers around key social science agendas. Principal investigators (PIs), research professors, co-investigators, related researchers, and undergraduate students participated to jointly explore the conditions for sustaining life in the region and the role of communities.

The keynote presentation was delivered by Professor Park Hong-jae of the Department of Social Work at Western Sydney University, Australia. Professor Park examined the relationship between population change and local communities through Australian cases, presenting 'How Is Life Sustained Locally in an Era of Population Change: Place, Connections, and Intergenerational Continuity in Australian Cases of Care, Migration, and Settlement.'

In the subsequent discussion and Q&A session, participants shared concerns surrounding care, migration, and settlement, and discussed local life from the perspectives of place, relationships, and intergenerational connections. Researchers also took time to share their research interests and identify academic intersections.

The event was designed as a forum to share individual research outcomes and concerns and to link these to collaborative research. By examining the common challenge of population change from diverse academic perspectives, it laid the groundwork for broadening the scope of research cooperation to interdisciplinary topics such as AI and future societies.

Yun Myeong-suk, Director of the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at JBNU, said, 'Examining how local life is sustained in an era of population change is an important task in preparing for our society's future.' She added, 'I hope this colloquium will serve as a starting point for connecting researchers' diverse concerns, and we will continue to expand the research base that responds to regional and social change through interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration.'