The two-day National Taiwan University-Kyoto University Symposium 2013, the first meeting of its scale between NTU and Kyoto University, was held at NTU on December 19.  Building on the foundation of nearly ten years of close partnership between the two institutions, the milestone event, attended by nearly 300 scholars, set the stage for future cooperation, with NTU President Pan-Chyr Yang promising to visit Kyoto next September.

During the intensive symposium, Kyoto University President Hiroshi Matsumoto, Vice-President Kiyoshi Yoshikawa, and 90 other KU scholars engaged in exchanges with their NTU counterparts.  The participants from both universities came from diverse backgrounds, including agriculture, life science, medicine, chemistry and material science, science and technology, humanities, social sciences, university museums, and industrial-academic cooperation.

The symposium commenced with Vice-President Yoshikawa and NTU Dean of International Affairs Luisa Shu-Ying Chang presenting overviews of their respective institutions, and continued on to the two presidents’ plenary speeches.  President Matsumoto discussed “The Role of Universities in Promoting Innovation,” while President Yang elaborated on “Shaping NTU to Meet Global Challenges.”  The presidents’ speeches, while pointing out key challenges faced by higher education in current times, also laid the foundation for the symposium.

The opening ceremony was followed by nine parallel sessions, where bilateral academic exchanges enhanced the scholars’ recent research and opened up possibilities for future joint projects.  Poster sessions in which students from both universities showcased their research findings, also ran throughout the symposium. Besides addressing academic research, this symposium provided opportunities for sharing experiences concerning university museums and industry-university cooperation.