Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,
On behalf of Kyoto University, I would like to warmly welcome you all to the 2nd Kyoto-Bristol Symposium. I would like to thank our distinguished guests for their attendance: Deputy Minister Ms. Kumiko Bando of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, Mr. Jeff Streeter, director of the British Council Japan, and of course Professor Sir Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol.
I would also like to extend a particularly warm welcome to all of our British colleagues who have traveled so far to be with us for this event. I hope that you will enjoy your stay in Kyoto, and that you might have some time in your busy schedules to see something of the city. Kyoto is a city where the ancient and modern combine and a unique balance is achieved between tradition and innovation. While preserving its rich cultural heritage and customs, the city has an open and forward-looking spirit, which has been embraced by many successful international businesses that are based here. The combined influences of the city's contemplative traditional culture and stimulating progressive outlook provide an ideal environment for students and researchers of all disciplines to thrive. In this unique environment, Kyoto University has cultivated its tradition of progressive education and research for over a century, and to this day we pride ourselves on providing a free-thinking academic environment with an international outlook.
A year has passed since the 1st Kyoto–Bristol Symposium was held in Bristol in January, 2013. The first symposium was believed to have been the largest of its kind ever held in the UK, and was extensively covered by local and international media, including a report on BBC Television and features in the New York Times and Times Higher Education, among others.
The first symposium was a great success—to the extent that it has had a profound and positive impact not only on Kyoto University's research collaboration with the UK, but on the university's approach to international relations in general. The first symposium with Bristol now serves as a model for other large-scale research collaboration symposia that Kyoto University is holding in cooperation with our international partners. Subsequent to the first Bristol symposium, we have held similar symposia with universities in Switzerland and Taiwan.
The research groups which were formed at the first symposium have been making steady progress during the past year, and there have been several subsequent exchange visits between scholars from our two institutions to advance the collaboration. As the existing groups are developing so well on their own, the organizers of this second symposium decided that the focus should be on the formation of new groups, and the encouragement of new areas of collaboration. Today we are joined by approximately 60 scholars from University of Bristol and over 100 scholars from Kyoto University. The combined spread of knowledge represented is deep and diverse, and this is reflected in the wide scope of the themes being tackled by the academic sessions, which cover an impressive spread of topics from science and technology to the humanities and social sciences. I hope that this symposium will serve as a platform for the assembled researchers to share their knowledge, their ideas, and their aspirations, and that like the first symposium, the relationships formed over the next two days will be enduring partnerships that will significantly contribute to scholarship in their respective fields.
It is my belief that "scholarship" can essentially be described as "human relationships revolving around the search for truth." For example, the relationships we have with our mentors, who inherit the accumulated wisdom and achievements of their predecessors and pass it down to us, the relationships we have with our colleagues, and even with our rivals—it is through such interactions that "scholarship" is attained. The direct relationship between such encounters and the quality and nature of the resulting scholarship can be compared to Buddhism's karmic law of cause and effect: nothing occurs without the corresponding circumstances to bring it about. Through events such as this symposium, we endeavor to influence such natural process of cause and effect by providing the most fertile ground possible for those vital human relationships to form and thrive.
It is my hope, then, that the opportunities provided by this symposium for sharing ideas and opinions, meeting new colleagues, and making new acquaintances will lead to new research developments in the future, and that it will nurture the development of international collaboration between Japan and the UK.
It is also my sincere hope that this symposium, like its predecessor one year ago, will be more than a mere networking opportunity for research cooperation, but that it will also be a platform for the sharing of our highest aspirations and for mutual encouragement and support.
Thank you for your attention.