President Iñigo Urkullu of the Basque Government, Spain, Visits HU

On October 15, 2023, President Iñigo Urkullu of the Basque Government, Spain, visited the Higashi-Senda Campus of Hiroshima University (HU) and engaged in a meeting with HU President Ochi. Executive Vice President for Global Initiatives, Shinji Kaneko, as well as Executive Vice President for the Kasumi Campus, Faculty Personnel and Public Relations, Junko Tanaka, were also in attendance.

During the visit, President Ochi introduced HU’s various large-scale research projects that play to the university’s strengths, such as knotted chiral meta matter, semi-conductors, genome research, brain science, and shipbuilding. He also touched on the subject of the plan to dispatch HU students short-term to the Basque Country starting next fiscal year and expressed his desire to increase student exchange by inviting distinguished young people from the Basque Country to study in HU’s world-class research environment.

President Iñigo Urkullu mentioned that he has been putting the Basque Country’s efforts into a wide variety of fields such as nanotechnology, regenerative medicine, and peacebuilding. He expressed his hopes that HU and universities within the Basque Country will engage in exchange in such fields and more in the future.

The exchange between HU and the Basque Country picked up pace in November 2022, when Dr. Cristina Uriarte, Commissioner for Science, Technology, and Innovation from the Basque Government’s Cabinet Office, and Vice-Minister Dr. Adolfo Morais of the Department of Education, visited HU and exchanged opinions on the Town & Gown Initiative and other matters. Then, in March of this year, HU President Ochi and Executive Vice President Kaneko visited the Basque Country and engaged in meetings with the Minister of the Department of Education and the presidents of major universities and signed an inter-university exchange agreement with the University of the Basque Country.

HU has signed 6 inter-university international exchange agreements with 5 institutions and 1 inter-faculty international exchange agreement with Spain. Currently, there are 2 students from Spain studying at HU. This courtesy visit is expected to promote exchange with universities and research institutions in Spain, including the Basque Country.