Education Minister Hiroshi Hase visits the KU-HUST Office in Vietnam (3 May 2016)

On 3 May 2016, His Excellency Hiroshi Hase, Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, paid a visit to the Kyoto University-Hanoi University of Science and Technology Research and Education Program for Environmental Studies (KU-HUST Office), located within HUST's School of Environmental Science and Technology (INEST). He was accompanied by six ministry officials as well as Deputy Chief of Mission Jun Yanagi and a colleague from the Embassy of Japan.

The nine visitors were greeted by two faculty members of the KU Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies (GSGES), including Professor Shigeo Fujii, who also serves as a co-representative of the KU-HUST Office, and 41 representatives of HUST, including President Hoang Minh Son and 11 students who had graduated from KU. They were joined via video conference by 27 faculty and students from four universities -- Kyoto University, Hue University (Vietnam), the University of Danang (Vietnam), and Mahidol University (Thailand), the last three of which, along with HUST, are participants in the KU Environmental Innovator Program.

After touring the KU-HUST Office's laboratory and administrative office, the group was ushered into a HUST-INEST meeting room, where HUST-INEST Dean Professor Nghiem Trung Dung, another co-representative of the KU-HUST Office, delivered a welcome address. Professor Fujii then spoke about the Office's collaborative activities, before three HUST students who had studied at Kyoto University shared their memories of their time in Japan. Professor Huynh Trung Hai, a former co-representative of the Office, expressed his gratitude for the support provided by the Government of Japan. Minister Hase concluded his visit by expressing his high expectations for KU-HUST collaborations and offering words of encouragement to everyone involved.