On September 29, Executive Vice President Toshiya Ueki attended a Steering Committee Meeting of the Japan-UK Research and Education Network for Knowledge Economy Initiatives (RENKEI), which was held in Kyoto.
A total of twenty-four representatives from member universities, including directors and vice presidents, participated in the meeting, where they discussed the consortium’s future activities and management.
The meeting opened with a keynote speech on the Japanese government’s efforts to further promote internationalization. The speech was given by Mr. Yosuke Kobayashi, who is the director of the International Affairs Division within the Higher Education Bureau at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Thereafter, a representative from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) spoke about ‘ASPIRE’ (Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for Innovative Research Ecosystem), the JST initiative to support international joint research in the fields of science and technology.
Following the keynote speech, RENKEI’s co-chairs, EVP Ueki and Newcastle University’s Dr. Spencer Hazel, facilitated a discussion with the participants where they exchanged ideas about future activities. They discussed organizing workshops on the current term’s themes of climate change and health, as well as holding events such as hybrid lectures given by prominent researchers from the consortium’s participating universities. The representatives expressed their interest in the proposed activities and reaffirmed the importance of further promoting exchanges within the consortium as well as making the consortium’s activities more widely known by various stakeholders, such as governments and industry.
For more information on RENKEI, please click here.
【RENKEI Co-chair EVP Ueki moderates discussion】
【RENKEI representatives engage in discussion】
Contact:
Global Engagement Division, Tohoku University
Email: kokusai-k@grp.tohoku.ac.jp
TEL: 022-217-5578