Campus-in-Campus Annual Meeting 2025 Held at Tsukuba Conference

The Campus-in-Campus (CiC) Annual Meeting 2025 was successfully held from October 1 to 3, 2025, at the Tsukuba International Congress Center as an official side event of the Tsukuba Conference 2025.

The CiC initiative, launched by University of Tsukuba, promotes trans-border education and research collaboration by sharing campus functions with partner universities worldwide, transcending national and institutional boundaries.

This year's meeting welcomed approximately 20 on-site and 10 online delegates from 10 CiC partner universities. Distinguished representatives included President Yassine LAKHNECH of University of Grenoble Alpes (UGA), Executive Vice President Shih-Torng DING of National Taiwan University (NTU), Executive Vice President Shyi-Woei CHANG of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), and Dean Sumana DUTTA of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG).

From University of Tsukuba, more than 20 faculty and staff members participated, led by President NAGATA Kyosuke. Other attendees included Vice President and Executive Director KATO Mitsuyasu (Education), Vice President and Executive Director ENDO Yasunori (Research), Vice President NAKAUCHI Yasushi (Collaborative Research), Vice President OHNEDA Osamu (Global Affairs), and Executive Officer SAKURAI Takeaki. Regional directors and administrative managers of University of Tsukuba's overseas offices, as well as staff from the Division of Educational Promotion's Social Impact Promotion Office, Division of Student Exchange, and Organization for Strategic Research Initiative, also joined the discussions.

The meeting focused on three key themes: CiC Joint Fund, Borderless Education, and Research Collaboration.

Under the CiC Joint Fund, participants discussed a new framework enabling member universities to provide research funds directly to their Principal Investigators (PIs) collaborating with counterparts from other CiC partners, fostering international joint research.

In the Borderless Education session, University of Tsukuba's multicultural co-learning programs, including DOJO (outside Japan) and GASSHUKU (in Japan) were introduced as examples. Plans are underway to expand these programs across CiC universities. Concurrently held during the CiC Meeting was a GASSHUKU program for students from IITG supported by the JST Sakura Science Program with the theme "Collaborative Learning for Sustainable Ecosystem Practices in Food, Health, and Community: Learning from Practices at Mizuho Village Market and Organic Farm in Tsukuba-mirai." Students presented their fieldwork findings in a poster session, generating lively discussions with CiC delegates.

In the Research Collaboration session, participants explored strategies to advance international joint research in priority areas such as smart agriculture, elderly care, ethnic diversity, precision medicine, energy, and robotics.

Over the three-day event, participants shared updates on ongoing initiatives, challenges, and future opportunities in education, research, and industry-academia collaboration. On the last day, they jointly adopted the "CiC Joint Declaration 2025", setting the shared vision and direction for the coming year. The declaration reaffirmed the partners' commitment to deepening cross-border collaboration and building a global education system.

Following the declaration, a "Jump-starting Session" discussed concrete implementation plans. Each university will bring the outcomes of these discussions back to their respective institutions to develop specific projects.

University of Tsukuba looks forward to further strengthening its collaboration with CiC partner universities in research, education, and industry-academia initiatives, driving innovation and international engagement in the years ahead.