From September 16 to 19, the International Network of Universities (INU) Council Meeting, Research Steering Committee Meeting, and Masters Program Meeting were held at Malmo University (Sweden) with representatives of the President or Vice President in attendance from the following universities: La Trobe University and Flinders University (Australia), James Madison University (US), University of Leicester (England), Ritsumeikan University (Japan), Malmo University and Jonkoping University (Sweden), Budapest University of Technology and Economics(Hungary), Universita Cattolica del Sacro Coure (Italy), and Kyung Hee University (Korea). From our university, President Asahara, Vice President Ninomiya, Professor Nishitani (Graduate School of Social Sciences), Associate Professor Obara (Graduate School of Science), and Ms. Sugahara (Chief, International Planning and Cooperation Group) were in attendance.



The second Student Seminar on Global Citizenship, held in August at HU, received high praise from participating universities. Students and staff from Malmo University, who participated in the seminar, gave their impression and spoke of the meaningful points of the event. It was confirmed at the meeting that the same seminar will take place next year and the year after in Hiroshima, and the active participation of member universities was called for (member universities were called to actively participate).



At the Research Steering Committee Meeting, the decision was made to support holding research workshops in 8 of the 20 research priority areas selected at the first annual research workshop last year. The amount of funding will be approximately 1 million yen for 3 research workshops; the application deadline is the end of October 2007. For details, please contact Associate Professor and Committee Member Obara (msobara (at) hiroshima-u.ac.jp). Funded areas include:



1) Environmental Studies Including Water

2) Global Information Systems

3) Health of Marginalized People

4) Health informatics

5) Population Aging

6) Math and Science Education Research

7) Peace, Cultural Heritage, Internal Relations, Migration, and Ethnic Studies

8) International Education.



At the Masters Program Meeting, there were propositions about the development and implementation of the Double Degree Program among INU Network Universities, and active discussions were held toward program creation. The Program aims to develop joint education programs on the topic of peace/global citizenship and to create a system where it would be possible for students to gain 2 degrees from 2 universities in 2 years. The program has been adopted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's "Programs for the Promotion of Internationalization of University Education." The specifics will be discussed in more detail by experts from the 10 participating universities during an Academic Committee to be held at Ritsumeikan University in November of this year.



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