A five member delegation led by Mr. Motoyuki Ono, Special Adviser to the Chancellor, visited our partner schools in Central-Europe. Among the delegates there were faculty members of JIU, Professor Tomohiko Yoshida, Vice President and Head of Center for International Education and Associatte Professor Attila Kiraly, member of Josai Institute for Central European Studies, and two members from the JUEC responsible for international relations.

During the first week of October, the delegates paid official visits to our partner universities in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Hungary. University of Warsaw, University of Łódź, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (Poland); Masaryk University (the Czech Republic); Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia); Eötvös Loránd University, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary and Budapest Business School (Hungary) were the receiving parties of those visits.

Aiming to discuss further cooperation and enhancement of student, research and faculty exchange, they met with managing members of each institution, along with faculty members of Japanese Studies, and heads of International Relations.

Josai has always enjoyed strong relationship with institutions of higher education in the Visegrad 4 countries (‘V4’ in short, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), starting with the signing of the first educational cooperation agreement in 2007 with Budapest Business School. Now, there are 19 partner schools in the region, and in the past 11 years, JU and JIU have accepted more than 180 students from V4 through internships, and more than 590 students were sent to those four countries in various forms of student exchange.

To reach out to our former exchange students, the delegates invited past Mizuta Scholarship students, and Josai students currently studying in Central Europe to dinner gatherings in both Warsaw and Budapest. A total of 20 former/current students showed up for a happy occasion.
　 A fifth member of the delegation visited University of Pécs and University of Debrecen in Hungary, and Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Lithuania in the following week, returning to Japan on the 13th.

Extensive information gathered through those visits will be reflected in actions by both universities to improve current exchange programs, to set up new international programs and to make those programs more accessible and attractive to all students.