On March 6, MIZUHATA Minoru (the Institute for Promoting International Partnerships’ director of the Europe & Africa Division), KAWAI Naruo (the director of the Global Education Center), HAYASHI Ryoko (professor at the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies), and NISHIKAWA Taro (project assistant professor at the Global Education Center) visited KU Leuven, Belgium.
Last year, Executive Vice President NAKAMURA Tamotsu (the director of the Institute for Promoting International Partnerships), visited KU Leuven and discussed educational and research exchanges (Read more about this here: /en/announcement/2023_12_19_01_1/). This year’s visit was a continuation of that.

The delegation visited the International Office of KU Leuven and discussed practical forms of exchange with Bart Hendrickx (the head of Academic Diplomacy), and Dimitri Vanoverbeke (professor at the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, Faculty of Law).

Following the visit to the International Office, Mizuhata and Hayashi visited the International Relations Office (Geel Huis) of the Science, Engineering and Technology Group at KU Leuven. During the meeting, they exchanged views with Matt Tips, Pascale Conard, and Aurélie Van delm, and discussed exchange opportunities in the natural sciences, with a special focus on the two universities’ Faculties of Engineering, which are expected to expand in the future. Although they were on vacation, they participated enthusiastically in the discussion, and it was confirmed that there is a strong interest in measures to highlight the contribution of graduate students in collaborative research in the natural sciences.

It is hoped that this visit will lead to more exchanges between the two universities in the future.

(Note: In conjunction with this visit, the “14th Kobe University Europe Forum ‘Kobe U Day — One Kobe Family’” was held in Brussels. Read more on this here.)

（Global Engagement Division）