うららかな春が巡ってきました。この季節、キャンパスをそぞろ歩く新入生の皆さんの姿を目にすると、私も広島大学の門をくぐった半世紀前を懐かしく思い出します。    

今年はウクライナ侵攻が2年目に入り、トルコ・シリアでは大地震による甚大な被害が生じています。世界の人たちに「当たり前の日々」が早く戻ってくることを切に願うばかりです。

広島大学は開学75年、最も古い前身校の開校から150年の節目を来年に控え、学生の皆さんに存分に学んでもらえるよう、教育研究環境の整備を着々と進めてまいりました。

自然に恵まれた東広島キャンパス（東広島市）では2021年11月、多目的スペースやカフェ、宿泊室を備えた広島大学フェニックス国際センターMIRAI CREA（ミライ クリエ）がオープンし、いつも大勢の研究者、国内外の学生の皆さんでにぎわっています。

「医療人養成拠点」として整備を進めている霞キャンパス（広島市南区）には昨年11月、5階建ての新しい講義棟「凌雲棟」が完成しました。440席を備える大講義室は、極精細な画面表示ができる231インチ（高さ2.9m、幅5.3m）の大型LEDビジョンを3面設置。医学部、歯学部、薬学部の学生を中心とした授業のほか、学会や研修会等の行事にも活用できます。さらに日米共同研究機関である放射線影響研究所の霞キャンパスへの移転も決定しました。「被爆地でしかできない」また「被爆地だからこそ行うべき」大学と放影研の共同研究を深化させ、人類の平和と健康に貢献したいと考えています。

「法曹養成を核とした人文社会科学の新しい拠点」と位置付ける東千田キャンパス（広島市中区）には、法学部と大学院法学・政治学プログラムが東広島キャンパスから新築移転し、この春から授業が始まっています。中心部にある立地を活かし、社会人向けのリカレント教育も行われます。    

このほか、再開発が進むJR広島駅南口に直結する広島JPビルディング2階にサテライトスペース「広島大学きてみんさいラボ」が昨年10月オープンしました。学生や市民の皆さんにコワーキングスペースとして、積極的に活用してほしいと思っています。

良い研究と教育を行うためには教育研究環境の整備が欠かせません。広島大学は中四国で唯一、文部科学省の「世界トップレベル研究拠点プログラム」に採択されるなど、これからも大型の研究開発拠点が続々誕生します。手前みそになってしまいますが、広島大学は学びがいのある、本当に良い大学です。学生の皆さんからもっともっと「選ばれる大学」になるよう、これからも全学を挙げて取り組んでまいります。

Spring has come. Seeing new students strolling around campus at this time of the year triggers my nostalgic memory of half-a-century ago when I also passed through the gates of Hiroshima University (HU).

Ukraine has just entered its second year of invasion, while Turkey and Syria have suffered devastating damage and aftershocks from a major earthquake. I sincerely hope that ‘normality’ will soon be restored to the people in the world who are affected by such events.

With HU’s 75th anniversary of foundation and the 150th anniversary of its oldest predecessor school approaching next year, consistent efforts have been made to improve the educational and research environment, to enable students to optimize their learning.

In November 2021, the nature-rich Higashi-Hiroshima Campus (Higashi-Hiroshima City) launched the Hiroshima University Phoenix International Center MIRAI CREA, which comes with a multipurpose space, café, and overnight accommodation. It is so gratifying to see this center always bustling with researchers as well as domestic and international students.

The Kasumi Campus (Minami Ward, Hiroshima City), streamlined as ‘a hub for training medical professionals’, saw the completion last November of a new five-story lecture building, the Ryôun Building. With a capacity of 440 seats, the spacious lecture theater comes with three 231-inch (2.9m high and 5.3m wide) large LED screens of ultra-high definition quality. This lecture theater is mainly for students from the School of Medicine, School of Dentistry and School of Pharmacy, but it also serves as a venue for academic conferences, workshops and other events. In addition, a decision has been made to relocate the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), a cooperative Japan-US research organization, to the Kasumi Campus. My aim is to further world peace and health by facilitating in-depth joint research between the university and RERF; the most eligible venue for undertaking such research is an A-bombed city such as Hiroshima. 

The School of Law and the MA/PhD Law and Politics program were relocated from the Higashi-Hiroshima Campus to the Higashi-Senda Campus (Naka Ward, in Hiroshima City), which is now the ‘new hub for humanities and social sciences with legal training at its core’. Taking advantage of its central location, recurrent education for working people will also be offered.

Moreover, last October saw the launch of the satellite space Hiroshima University Kiteminsai Lab co-working space on the second floor of the Hiroshima JP Building, which is to be directly connected to the south exit of JR Hiroshima Station (currently undergoing redevelopment). I would like students and citizens to actively use this facility as a co-working space.

Streamlining an education and research environment is essential for a university to practise good research and education. From now on, a series of major Research & Development centers will be launched at HU. For example, HU has been selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to be a host institution of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI). HU is the only university in the Chugoku-Shikoku District to have been selected for the WPI. I may sound biased in favour of the university’, but as you can see, its quality as a provider of learning opportunities speaks for itself. To increase the likelihood of HU being ‘the university of choice’ for students, more ongoing university-wide efforts will be made into the future.