The 5th Japan-Mexico Rectors’ Summit was held for two days at Sophia University on October 6-7 and was attended by about 60 participants from 24 Japanese universities and institutions including Prof. Shinji Kaneko, Executive Vice President (Global Initiatives) (far right in the photo),and about 40 rectors and vice presidents from 18 Mexican universities and institutions. 

At the summit, with the common theme of “Global Risks and Universities”, active discussions took place by speakers and participants in each sub-theme; “1. Future direction of international exchange and educational activities between Japan and Mexico,” “2. Issues of social fragmentation and inequality,” “3. Environmental issues, climate change, sustainable society” and “4. Future directions for international joint research between Japan and Mexico”. 

Prof. Kaneko spoke at the session of “3. Environmental issues, climate change, sustainable society”. In his speech, he introduced that Hiroshima University has stated to realise both the Carbon Neutrality with the energy being used at the Higashi-Hiroshima campus by 2030 - 20 years prior to the goal which the government aims and the Smart city 5.0 that implements Society 5.0, and introduced how the university has been working on it in collaborative with academic-government-industry to achieve it.  

Following the speech, the speaker and the participants discussed how higher education institutions in the world including Japan and Mexico could collaboratively work on implementation of sustainable human society. 

The 1st Summit was held in 2011 with the aim of bringing together university presidents from Japan and Mexico to enhance friendship and develop new collaboration and partnerships, and it held every two years taking place alternatively in both countries.  (The 3rd Summit took place in 2017 hosted by Hiroshima University.) The 6th Japan-Mexico Rectors' Summit is scheduled to be held at the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico (IPN).