Asia Intercollegiate Cooperative Project
for Nurturing Global Leaders
in Sustainable Infrastructure Development

The first consortium meeting for the “Inter-University Exchange Project”of the Graduate School of Engineering, which was adopted in November 2021, was held online on March 24, and the project was launched in full scale. The event was a great and successful start with more than 40 participants from the five participating universities. In addition to the three universities that continue from the 2nd Mode to the current 3rd Mode (Nagasaki University, Japan; Shandong University, China; and Sungkyunkwan University, Korea), Nanyang Technological University from Singapore and National University of Laos from Laos, also participated in the meeting.

At the consortium meeting, new agreements on the “Asia Intercollegiate Cooperative Project for Nurturing Global Leaders in Sustainable Infrastructure Development” were signed between the three universities. Nagasaki University’s Graduate School of Engineering, and both of Shandong University’s School of Civil Engineering, School of Qilu Transportation, and School of Environmental Science and Engineering, and Sungkyunkwan University’s School of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering. Based on these agreements, memorandums of understanding for student exchange were also concluded at the same time. Agreements are scheduled to be concluded among the five universities by the end of this academic year, including Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Laos.

At the opening of the consortium meeting, Nagasaki University’s Trustee Prof. Ito gave an opening address, expressing her enthusiasm for the success of the Global Human Resource Development Project. Later, Prof. Han Shenghao, Vice President of Shandong University, and Prof. Kyung-Soo Jun, Dean of the Graduate School of Water Resources, Sungkyunkwan University, as well as representatives from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Nanyang Technological University, and the Faculty of Engineering in National University of Laos delivered remarks. The representatives expressed their aspirations for the Campus Asia Project Mode 3 implementation and for strengthening collaboration among the five universities.

On March 7, Associate Professor Suzuki, the faculty member in charge of our program, and two administrative staff members participated in a liaison meeting, which was held online by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for universities participating in the Inter-University Exchange Project.

The 3rd Mode of the Inter-University Exchange Project has started this academic year. In addition to the previously participating three countries (Japan, China, and Korea), the project is now expanding its efforts to include new partnerships with universities in ASEAN countries. The main purpose of this meeting was to share issues and points to be improved among the participating universities in order to further accelerate and develop the project initiatives.

At the liaison meeting, representatives from MEXT, Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS), and the National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education (NIAD-QE), as well as the 17 selected universities participating in the 3rd Mode presented their programs and shared information and exchanged opinions about difficulties and challenges, especially regarding the 3rd Mode applications.

In the current situation of the spread of corona infection, issues such as online joint degrees, student activeness, and government support for ASEAN countries are common issues in the implementation of the program, and at Nagasaki University we found this meeting is very meaningful to help develop the program in the future.