The First Joint Seminar on Coastal Oceanography was held in Chaing Mai, and attended by researchers from Ocean Research Institute of the University of Tokyo and their co-workers in Japan and across Southeast Asia.

Since 2001, the Ocean Research Institute has been conducting a multilateral core university project with Chulalonkkorn University in Thailand, the R&D Research Center for Biotechnology of LIPI in Indonesia, the University of the Philippines, Haiphong Institute of Oceanology in Vietnam, and University of Technology, Malaysia.

At the seminar, the results of exchanges carried out under the project over the past three years were reported and discussed through both oral presentations and poster sessions. Focus was placed on the following four topics:

1. Water circulation and process of material transport in coastal areas and marginal seas of East and Southeast Asia
2. Ecology and oceanography of harmful marine microalgae
3. Biodiversity studies in coastal waters of East and Southeast Asia
4. Pollution from hazardous chemicals in coastal marine environment and its ecological effect

At the opening ceremony on 14 December, Prof. Masami Tsukamoto, Japanese coordinator for the core university project, and vice president of Chulalongkorn University, Prof. Usanee Yodyingyuad delivered welcome addresses. Prof. Tsukamoto explained that the Ocean Research Institute had started the project with Indonesia and Thailand in 1988 in an initially bi-lateral framework; and that, building on the knowledge and experience gained in that initial phase, the project was expanded to a multilateral exchange.

Mr. Tsuyoshi Enomoto, head of JSPS's Asian Program Division, gave a presentation titled "JSPS and Core University Program," in which he introduced the fact that JSPS had changed status to an "independent administrative agency" on October 2003, explaining that under JSPS's new international mandate, exchanges with Asian countries through Core University Program will become even more important and dynamic.