13th Annual IARU Presidents’ Meeting

Date of activity: May 4, 2018 - May 6, 2018

The 13^th Annual IARU Presidents’ Meeting (International Alliance of Research Universities) was held on May 4 and 6 at the Beijing University, where the University of Tokyo was represented by President Makoto Gonokami and Professor Kiichi Fujiwara (Graduate Schools for Law and Politics), who is also a Special Assistant to the President.
Member universities shared information on domestic and international issues impacting them as well as their internal policies. In particular, the kind of actions each universities should take regarding the large changes that take place in society. Furthermore, President Gonokami was nominated and confirmed as the Chairman for the period 2019-2020 during which time UTokyo will be in charge of the IARU Secretariat.
 
Also, the Peking University’s 120^th Anniversary Ceremony was held on Friday, May 4 as well as the World University President Forum and Beijing Forum (May 4 – 5) which was attended by about 200 universities from China and over 100 universities from the rest of the world. President Gonokami gave a keynote speech on the first day of the Forum where he reported on Society 5.0 and UTokyo’s Future Society Initiatives.
 

Keynote speech by the University of Tokyo President Makoto Gonokami at the Beijing Forum 2018
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/gen01/b_message_beijingforum2018.html


UTokyo actively participates in the various activities organized by IARU such as the student exchange activities in the form of summer schools and internships; research collaborations of campus sustainability, fields of aging as well as women and men in globalizing universities; and the networking activities for the alumni associations as well as librarians. The current status and progress of each of the activities were reported during the Presidents’ Meeting and their future directions were deliberated.  
 

IARU (International Alliance of Research Universities), established in 2006, is a collaboration between eleven of the world's leading research-intensive universities who share similar visions for higher education, in particular the education of future leaders.

• http://www.iaruni.org/