Recently, the UASR 2021 webinar series on social security was held online. Held by University Alliance of the Silk Road, co-organized by UASR Secretariat and Politecnico di Milano, the series of monthly webinars was launched in February of 2021 and lasted for 4 months. During the period, specialists and scholars from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Politechnico di Milano, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Nazarbayev University, Benha University, and other member universities exchanged ideas on issues like “environment security”, “water security”, “land security”, and “infrastructure security” for four times. Nearly 200 specialists and scholars from UASR member universities participated in the online discussion.

The first webinar was held on February 24, themed “Environmental Security”. Four professors from Politecnico di Milano and Nazarbayev University shared their ideas on environmental security based on their research fields and subjects, including waste management, circular economy, pollution remediation and air quality.

The second webinar held on March 3 was about Water Secuity. Three experts and scholars from Politechnico di Milano had a discussion on the management of water resources, the relationship between water resources and food security, and the sustainable development of water resources based on their research findings of certain fields. They also answered the questions raised by participants and had a further discussion on the research method regarding the field of water security.

The third webinar was held on April 28 on the topic of Land Security. Five professors from Politecnico di Milano and Hong Kong Polytechnic University gave presentations on their researching subjects, which included the prevention and control of flood disasters, hydrodynamic modeling, land erosion, landslide, and so on.

The fourth webinar was held on May 26 with the theme of Infrastructure Security. Five scholars from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Politecnico di Milano and Hong Kong Polytechnic University shared their related researches in fields of infrastructure, including infrastructure and climate change, innovative materials, bridge application, infrastructure and energy resources, and so on. They conducted a deep discussion on several issues related to infrastructure security.

It is reported that the holding of the online thematic webinar series is one of the measures taken by the UASR to deal with the normalization of the epidemic. Focusing on various issues under the Sustainable Development Goals, the “social security” webinar series promoted the interaction and mutual learning regarding the research findings amongst member universities, and was highly praised by a number of member universities of UASR.