On October 25th, 2018, 12 participants of the Australia Japan Research and Innovation Forum (held on October 23rd at Kyoto Institute of Technology) from universities in Australia and the Australian Embassy of Japan visited NAIST.

Institute for Educational Initiatives Global Relations Administrator Masako Shimamoto first welcomed the delegation and briefly introduced NAIST.

The delegates then visited the three divisions at NAIST. At the Division of Information Science, associate Professor Matsubara (Intelligent System Control Lab.) and the lab students gave robotics demonstrations, at the Division of Biological Science, Director Hashimoto introduced overviews of their research and laboratory equipment, and at the Division of Materials Science, Professor Urakawa (Information Device Science Lab.) and Associate Professor Ando (Precision Polymer Design and Engineering Lab.) introduced their new research. The delegates expressed much interest in their research and discussions were brought up about the contents.

At the end of the courtesy visit, President Yokoya, Executive Director/Director General Watanabe, and Advisor to the President(International Affairs) Hirota warmly welcomed the delegation, and then the delegates also expressed their appreciation to NAIST for the informative tour.

NAIST has academic agreements with three universities in Australia with a long history of education and research exchange. This visit was a beneficial opportunity to build new relationships and encourage future cooperation between universities in Australia and NAIST.