Fostering collaboration through the East Asia SKA Workshop

BY DR TAKUYA AKAHORI (NAOJ/SKAO), ON BEHALF OF THE ORGANISERS OF EASKA2021

The 2021 East Asia SKA Workshop (EASKA2021), held from 26-28 May, brought together 126 participants from 11 countries to hear about the latest SKA-related activitiesintheregionandfurtherafield.

The meeting has taken place several times over the past 10 years, and this time was hosted by Kagoshima University in Japan, but held remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Presentations were delivered by Zoom, which also enabled live discussions, while a Slack workspace was set up for poster presentations and to continue discussions in writing. In total, EASKA2021 gathered 31 invited talks, 13 contributed talks and three posters.

On the first day, there were reports on SKA activities in China, Japan and Korea, as well as SKA precursors MWA, ASKAP, MeerKAT and pathfinders FAST in China, and VERA (which is part of the East Asian VLBI Network) in Japan. There were also presentations by SKAO Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond on the current status of the SKAO, and the SKAO’s Programme Director Dr Joe McMullin and Director of Operations Dr Lewis Ball presented the construction and operation plans, respectively.

LEFT: EASKA2021 welcomed attendees from 11 countries. CREDIT: EASKA2021

The remaining two days were filled with presentations on diverse, exciting subjects in SKA science and engineering. Through the discussion, the participants agreed on several action points.

Firstly, to aim for a wider collaboration involving Australia, India, and other Asian countries and regions for the next meeting.

Secondly, to seek bi- or tri-lateral funding for EASKA activities and encourage human exchange including cross-appointments between organisations.

Finally, to utilise the Chinese SKA Regional Centre (SRC) prototype and explore an Asian SRC through scientific cooperation.

The workshop proceedings will be published on the workshop website.