The 2018 Gro Brundtland Week of Women in Sustainable Development will be commenced with a grand opening ceremony on Thursday, March 29th. The opening ceremony takes place in the Social Science College of National Taiwan University, attended by 150 scientists and researchers from Taiwan and international organizations. Gro Brundtland Week aims to promote the global development of sustainability and public health.

The National Cheng Kung University President Dr. Huey-Jen Jenny Su (蘇慧貞), Tang Prize Foundation Chief Executive Mr. Jenn-Chuan Chern (陳振川) and the Director of College of Public Health College, National Taiwan University, Dr. CC Chan (詹長權) attended the opening ceremony. Dr. Alice Lin-Tsing Yu (陳鈴津) , the Academician of Taiwan Academia Sinica presented a keynote speech on “The challenges of economic sustainability of health care in the era of cancer immunotherapy”

The 2018 Gro Brundtland Week of Women in Sustainable Development, from March 29th to April 3rd, commits to engage young female researchers and promote the study of global issues in public health and sustainable development, ranging from women and children health, Epidemiology, to environmental sustainability. The Gro Brundtland Week is a three-year project granted by Tang Prize Foundation for National Cheng Kung University, from 2016 to 2018, aiming to establish and promote an international collaboration and partnership platform for female researchers. The closing event at NCUK, April 3rd, will be featured with a keynote speech by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the formal Norway Prime Minister and the first recipient of the Tang Prize in sustainable development and one of the Brundtland Week co-founders.

Five outstanding female scientists receive the 2018 Gro Brundtland award today.

Dr. Natisha Dukhi is a Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council in the Department of Population Health, Health Systems and Innovation of South Africa with expertise in the health of pregnant women, teenagers and children in South Africa and global.

Dr. Barbara Burmen is a medical researcher and a public health specialist in Kenya Medical Research Institute and Centers for Disease Control Research and Public Health Collaboration, with expertise in HIV implementation Science and Tuberculosis.

Dr. Neha Dahiya is a senior resident in community medicine at Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India, to study the quality of life of women who were treated for advanced cervical cancer.

Dr. Weena Gera is the assistant professor of Governance and Development in the Political Science Program at the University of the Philippines Cebu, specialized in the evolving structure of governance and their development implications in fragile states, particularly within Asia and the Pacific.

Dr. Sarva Mangala Praveena is the associate professor of Environmental and occupational health at University Putra Malaysia, specialized in environmental analysis and human health risk assessment.

Various public panels will be organized with the five 2018 award-wining researchers in Hua Lian Tzu Chi University on Saturday March 31th, and National Chung Hsing University on Monday April 2nd, including two keynote speeches: “Innovation and Infrastructure For Improvement of Healthy Aging” by Dr. Chao A. Hsiung (熊昭), Director of Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), and “The Battle Against Lung Cancer” by Dr. Yi-Ching Wang (王憶卿), NCKU Pharmacology professor.

The closing event will be featured with the award ceremony and a keynote speech on “Sustainable Development Goals, a thirty-year story of International collaboration“ by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, at NCKU on April 3rd.

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland was Norwegian Minister for Environmental Affairs from 1974 to 1979, and served three terms as Prime Minister of Norway (1981, 1986–89, and 1990–96) and as Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003. She is also known for having chaired the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, referred to as the Brundtland Commission) from 1984 to 1987 and published the report, Our Common Future, in April 1987, as the broad political concept of sustainable development, which also provided the momentum for the 1992 Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Dr. Gro Brundtland is widely regarded as the "godmother" of sustainable development.