The commemorative ceremony for the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Science and Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, newly established on April 1st, was held at a hotel in Hiroshima City on July 2nd. As a preventative measure against the coronavirus infections, the event was held on a reduced scale.

At the ceremony, President Mitsuo Ochi mentioned, “This spring, the university has established a new mechanism to reorganize and integrate the previous 11 graduate schools into four graduate schools (‘Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences’, ‘Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering’, ‘Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life’, ‘Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences’) which crossed the boundaries of their specific fields. To survive the future of rising uncertainties, we will develop human resources who will challenge the Blue Ocean strategy through a broader perspective, without being limited to a certain academic field”. Also, on the day of the event, congratulatory speeches were presented by Mr. Fumio Kishida, a member of the House of Representatives, as well as Mr. Yoshinori Hakui, Director-General of the Higher Education Bureau at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

After the ceremony, a commemorative lecture was held. In the first part, a talk titled “Delivering and Accepting Words” was given by Ms. Hiroko Oyamada, a graduate of Hiroshima University and the 2014 Akutagawa Prize-winning novelist. Then, in the second part, Dr. Akira Yoshino (Asahi Kasei Corporation Honorary Fellow), who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019, gave a remote lecture entitled “Future Society Developed by Lithium-Ion Batteries” from Tokyo, and was awarded the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor of Hiroshima University. Approximately 250 people, including high school students and students of our university, gathered at the venue and listened intently.