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The 4th JIEPP Japan-India Exchange Seminar was held on September 30, 2022 at 13:00 using the Zoom Webinar platform. 79 people from universities, including students, and companies attended the seminar.

Prof. Yoshihiko Uematsu (Executive Director of the Organization of Glocalization, Gifu University) gave an introduction on the joint degree program between Gifu University and Indian Institutes of Technology Guwahati. He explained that all the programs are carried out in English and that all participating students take classes while travelling between both campuses in Japan and India. He added that the universities do not collect admissions and tuition fees from participating students of the partner university. He mentioned that Gifu University concluded the agreement with IITG in 2012, and then expanded the exchanges among the two universities and continued the relationship by using both of online and face-to-face meetings which finally bore fruit as the joint degree program. He said that Gifu University aims the research outputs into local contribution and regional revitalization with the program. He also mentioned that Gifu University, as the coordinating university for the joint degree program council in Japan, hopes to help expand joint degree programs between universities in Japan and overseas universities.

Prof. Kume (Professor in the International Joint Department of Integrated Mechanical Engineering, Gifu University) gave a lecture about the good practices and difficulties faced while setting up the joint degree program. He explained that understanding the structure of the joint degree program and the differences in the educational system between each other’s university are necessary initially and then they were able to create the actual program by checking matters one by one, and adjusting schedules such as semesters, lectures and research paper reviews or credits based on a global standard. He added that face-to-face meetings are important to deepen relationship even though more online meetings were set up after COVID-19. He commented that they gained more research papers from joint research and international co-authorships, as well as motivating the participating Japanese students, who decided to be employed in international companies or organizations, as results of the joint degree program. He mentioned that the students had issues about the expenses for study abroad and the cultural differences while Gifu University had issues about having fewer Japanese applicants compared to Indian applicants. He explained that in order to meet the issues they would like to enrich the scholarship system and to promote the program more.

After the lectures, Mr. Yonehara (First Secretary, the Embassy of Japan in India) commented that the joint degree program between Gifu University and IITG is a very valuable program. He added that this joint degree program is beneficial for Indian students because while a lot of universities in Japan are not well known in India, the students can be highly evaluated for the joint degree program with IITG by companies in India. He pointed out that when we look at the number of international exchange agreements of universities in Japan with that in India, it is less than those with universities in China or in the United States. Also, the population in India is increasing and it looks like the ranking for the number of research paper from Japan is about to be overtaken by that from India. He mentioned that Indian students are required to learn Hindi, English and local languages to live in multilingual society, so it is difficult for them to learn Japanese in addition to these languages. He said that we should prepare programs held in English for Indian students. He announced that we Japanese should consider Japan-India exchange more like the Indians, who are very proactive for the exchange, with the mind of “just go for it”. He suggested that the audience should make good use of the Embassy of Japan in India.

Following the lectures and comment, one of the audiences questioned if the Japanese students participating in the program have difficulty in coping with both the program and job hunting. Prof. Kume answered that the program does not affect job hunting in Japan because the students go to India in summer in the first year of Master’s course and come back to Japan in the winter. Another from the audience argued that students in Master’s courses change completely after the examination to doctorate course in graduate schools in India unlike the Master’s courses in Japan where students usually continue to study in the same laboratory for the doctorate course.

Finally, Prof. Uematsu commented that the biggest issue for students to participate in the joint degree program is financial and that they need an environment where they can focus on the research without worrying about their daily life. He also stated that Gifu University will continue to push forward with the joint degree program using the grant money from MEXT’s (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan) Inter-university Exchange Project.