President Yamagiwa attends the 2015 Hamburg Transnational University Leaders Council (10–12 June 2015)

發表日期

2015/07/01

President Juichi Yamagiwa attended the 2015 Hamburg Transnational University Leaders Council, which was held on June 10–12 in Hamburg, Germany.

The event, which was cosponsored by the German Rectors' Conference, Hamburg University, and the Körber Foundation, focused on the theme "Which Values Can We Share in a Future World University System?" Over fifty university presidents from twenty-six countries gathered for a closed meeting to discuss the function of universities in today's globalized society.

During the meeting, President Yamagiwa gave a workshop presentation titled "Academic Freedom and University Autonomy", in which he discussed the Japanese university system. Speaking in the open discussion session, the President emphasized the importance of university internationalization, urging an exploration of ways to promote student mobility and ways to deal with international differences in university systems, such as tuition fee requirements. The council participants agreed that these are major issues which need to be addressed.

On the last day of the conference, the council signed and adopted the Hamburg Protocol, in which the participants formalized their agreement on several important matters relating to higher education, asserting that no single model of "the university" should dominate the higher education landscape, and that institutional diversity should be promoted.* The council then concluded the conference, expressing their intention to hold further meetings every two years in order to work toward the aims of the protocol.

*The full text of the Hamburg Protocol is available at the following URL:
http://www.hrk.de/uploads/media/Hamburg_Protocol.pdf