Executive Vice-President Kayo Inaba attended the 9th Japan–China University Presidents' Conference at Kyushu University on 28–30 October 2015. The Japan–China University Presidents' Conference was first held in Tokyo in October 2010. The conference serves as a platform for the presidents of leading universities in Japan and China to meet and discuss diverse matters relating to higher education and research in the two countries. The theme of the 9th conference was "The Internationalization of Japanese and Chinese Universities in the Global Era". The meeting was attended by approximately 200 participants from 35 universities and six other institutions in Japan and China.
The conference was opened with addresses by President Chiharu Kubo of Kyushu University, Mr Yutaka Tokiwa, director-general of the Higher Education Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Mr Bai Gang, Minister-Counselor from the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Japan, and Dr Michinari Hamaguchi, president of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). Keynote lectures were then given by President Susumu Satomi of Tohoku University and President Zhu Chongshi of Xiamen University.
Following the Keynote lectures, two parallel sessions were held on "University Internationalization and Contribution to Society" and "China-Japan University Collaboration on Human Resources Cultivation and Research for the Next Generation". Later in the afternoon, the outcomes of the two sessions were reported in a plenary session. Topics discussed included the promotion of collaborative interdisciplinary research projects to solve major issues in global society and education and research cooperation to cultivate human resources with effective global skills.
The 2nd Japan-China Student Forum was held in tandem with the President's Conference. At the forum, approximately 32 students from Japanese and Chinese universities discussed the topics of "how can students contribute to the internationalization of Japanese and Chinese universities" and "why do universities need to be internationalized?" After the discussion sessions, student representatives reported their outcomes to the President's Conference.
The conference was closed with the endorsement of an official joint statement, the Fukuoka Statement, proposing the advancement of cooperation between universities in Japan and China, as well as several concrete actions to promote such collaboration.
The 10th Japan–China University Presidents' Conference is scheduled to be held in 2017 at Northeastern University in Shenyang, China.
