Round table “Partnerships between Japanese and Russian academia, business and local authorities”

On September 25, 2020, Hokkaido University and Altai State University (ASU) jointly held an online roundtable conference which focuses on collaboration of industry, academia and government. The roundtable “Partnerships between Japanese and Russian academia, business and local authorities: Sharing good practices in training specialists for the community” was held as part of the international conference “IV Congress of the Association of Asian Universities/International Educational Forum Altai-Asia”. The event was recognized as a celebration of “Japan-Russia Inter-regional Exchanges 2020-2021”.

Approximately 130 participants from mainly Russia and Japan, including universities (36 from Russia and 7 from Japan), 5 companies from Japan, 2 research institutes from Japan, and government agencies (3 from Russia and 2 from Japan, including local governments) attended the conference. Of these, 12 were students from Russia and Japan.

The conference began with congratulatory remarks from Mr. Snesar, Deputy Governor of the Altai Region, followed by messages from Mr. Ganshin, Head of the Department of International Relations, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, and Mr. Sato, Head of the University Reform, Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Afterwards, Prof. Mazei, the Vice President of Moscow State University gave remarks and Mr. Kawanobe, the Vice President of the Institute for International Collaboration of Hokkaido University introduced the activities of the project, “Human Resource Development Platform for Japan-Russia Economic Cooperation and Personnel Exchange (HaRP) “ which is one of Inter-University Exchange Projects funded by MEXT.

At the session on good practices of regional arrangements for training experts, researchers from Kanazawa University, Nagasaki University, Altai State University, Kazan Federal University and Moscow State University presented good practices related to regional consortiums for the development of experts, including the fields of exchanges in each regional consortiums, the advantages, the background of exchanges, the financing of training program for specialists, the impact of the program to the regional development, precautions and solutions. After that, some participants presented their organizations’ activities on collaboration between Japan and Russia at the discussion session between participants from university, governments and companies.

This event provided participants a good opportunity to learn about the collaboration methods and challenges of regional consortiums that integrate universities, local governments and companies, and their various good practices presented by experts. They got many useful tips and ideas for improving the quality of collaboration of industry, academia and government between Japan and Russia.