Japanese

On November 20, 2025, Hiroshima University (HU) President Mitsuo Ochi, Executive Vice President (Global Initiatives) Shinji Kaneko, and Deputy Executive Director (Campus Globalization) Minju Kim visited Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea to hold a signing ceremony for an inter-university international exchange agreement.

At the signing ceremony, President Dong-Sup Yoon, Vice President for International Affairs Yong Chan Kim, and other representatives of Yonsei University extended a warm welcome to the HU delegation. In the subsequent exchange of views, Yonsei University introduced the institution as a comprehensive university operating across three campuses, including one in Seoul, with approximately 40,000 students and around 7,000 faculty and staff, actively engaged in international education and research activities across a wide range of fields. In addition to hosting more than 6,000 international students annually, Yonsei University also places strong emphasis on short-term programs such as International Summer and Winter Schools. They further shared information on their advanced initiatives, including international joint research in the fields of AI and digital technology utilizing IBM supercomputers.

Meanwhile, the HU delegation introduced the manga “Taking a Tour with Hiroko-san through Hiroshima University,” illustrated by Mr. Kenshi Hirokane, as part of HU’s efforts to promote the university’s history and research achievements more broadly. In addition to the Japanese version, the manga is also available in Korean, English, Chinese, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, and is utilized to convey the appeal of HU to international audiences. HU also explained its research clusters in areas such as semiconductors, digital manufacturing, regenerative medicine, and genome editing. Furthermore, HU introduced the University Presidents for Peace Conference, an initiative that invites university leaders from around the world to Hiroshima to share the realities of the atomic bombing and discuss the role of universities in building peace.

During the meeting, both sides also reminisced about their personal connections to Hiroshima and Seoul. President Yoon recalled his visit to Hiroshima as a medical student, during which he volunteered in treating atomic bomb survivors. President Ochi, in turn, looked back on performing a live surgery at the arthroscopy demonstration held in 2003 at the Yonsei University Centennial Hall. These shared memories brought a sense of nostalgia to the discussion.

The two universities engaged in constructive discussions on new possibilities for collaboration that leverage their respective strengths. Building on this agreement, it is expected that the mutual trust between the institutions will deepen further and that academic and cultural exchange between Japan and Korea will continue to flourish.

• 2003 Severance Arthroscopy Demonstration Workshop (Medical and Pharmaceutical News – Korean-language Article)