On February 28^th, a briefing session was held for NAIST's 2016 Overseas Staff Development Training Program.

The program began in 2007 to improve the international education and general planning skills and abilities for promoting systematic globalization in graduate school education through language training, workplace visits, debate, etc. at overseas universities.

This year, NAIST sent one administrative staff member to each of the following three university programs, Hawaii Tokai International College from November 7^th to November 19^th 2016, Macquarie University from November 20^th to December 3^rd, 2016 and University of California Davis from January 5^th to January 21^st 2017.

The staff participated in the practical English training program and investigated their own research themes regarding various administration roles at overseas universities through lectures, job shadowing in the offices and interviews with various administrative staff members there.

In their reports, the trainees explained what they achieved through the lectures and job shadowing, and their research findings such as the characteristics of the international student support system, methods for effectively obtaining research funds and the types and procedures for student financial aid, while describing differences between overseas universities and NAIST they discovered during the program.

Finally, they encouraged staff members to participate in the program, regardless of their English test scores or English ability, in order to effectively interact with the increasing number of international students and researchers.

In the following question and answer session, Executive Director Mikio Kataoka and staff members actively asked many questions, such as how the trainees have come to utilize their program experiences in their everyday administrative duties etc.

Finally, the Executive Director Kiyoshi Nakajima gave encouraging remarks expressing his hopes that the trainees will continue to improve their skills and share their valuable experiences with other staff members to further encourage globalization in NAIST, successfully ending this briefing session.