Delegation led by Hokkaido University

President Houkin visits the University of Melbourne

Hokkaido University (HU) delegates visited the University of Melbourne (UoM) in Australia between November 21 and 24, 2022. The delegates included President Kiyohiro Houkin, Executive Vice President Atsushi Yokota, Executive Vice President Takao Masuda, and faculty members representing the fields of zoonosis control, science, Ainu and indigenous studies, and environmental and health sciences. In June of the same year, Hokkaido University welcomed a delegation from UoM led by ViceChancellor Duncan Maskell, and strengthened universitywide collaboration between the two institutions.

During the visit to UoM, the universities concluded a Research Partnership Agreement on Hokkaido-Melbourne Joint Research Workshops Fund, and also renewed the InterUniversity Exchange Agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding on Student Exchange. The above-mentioned fund was established earlier, in March 2022, to support the organization of joint research workshops, with both universities contributing matching amounts to the fund. HU and UoM agreed to fund workshops for the following two years.

Through the fund, the scope of research collaboration between the universities has been broadened to include geriatric medicine, philosophy, residential environments, and mechano-pharmacology, in addition to long-standing collaborations in zoonosis control and electronic science. Dialogue between researchers of both universities have also begun in areas of common interest to both universities, including indigenous studies and food science.