On Tuesday, September 7, 2021, the 8th Meeting of the Committee for Personnel Exchanges between Japan and Russia was held online. As one of the agenda items of this committee meeting was to discuss future joint education activities between Japanese and Russian universities, we called for the participation of not only the committee participants from Japan, but also Russian universities that are actively engaged in joint education activities with the universities to which the committee participants from Japan belong. A total of 77 people, 40 from Japanese and 37 from Russia, participated and engaged in lively discussions and exchanges of views.

At the beginning of the meeting, the committee chair, Professor Hirofumi Kato of Hokkaido University, reported on the details of the seven committee meetings that were previously held. In addition, he explained the guidelines for credit transfer between Japanese and Russian universities, which are currently being prepared by the committee members from Japan, and the activities of the committee to date aimed at establishing credit transfer and joint educational programs between Japanese and Russian universities.

Then, participants from both Japan and Russia introduced specific examples of joint educational programs in Russia, as well as those established with the universities on the Japanese side, and there was a lively question-and-answer session with the participants on the know-how of conducting programs. During the meeting, committee participants were also able to collect a lot of useful information about the future establishment of joint educational programs between Japanese and Russian universities.