Ambassador of Israel to Japan visit to NAIST (June 8, 2022)

Mr. Gilad Cohen, Ambassador of Israel to Japan, visited NAIST on June 8, 2022. NAIST President Dr. Kazuhiro Shiozaki, Prof. Jun Ohta, (Executive Director/Vice President) and Dr. Masako Shimamoto (Global Engagement Officer) welcomed the delegation.

After greetings from President Shiozaki, Dr. Shimamoto gave introductions of NAIST's research and education activities. Ambassador Cohen said that Israel promotes the creation of innovation as a nation and actively develops academia-industry collaboration. It is also aiming to strengthen ties with Japanese academic institutions and the Embassy is willing to help NAIST conclude exchange agreements with Israeli institutions. Having served as a grant reviewer for the Israel Science Foundation in the past, President Shiozaki is familiar with Israel's science and technology prowess and expressed his expectations for future relationships with the country.

After the courtesy visit, the delegation toured the campus, starting with a visit to Prof. Michiko Inoue, the Director of the Division of Information Science and professor of the Dependable System Laboratory, at the director's office. Affiliate Prof. Fukuhito Ooshita, who was a former associate professor of the laboratory and currently a professor of Fukui University of Technology, joined the meeting online and gave presentations on the Japan-Israel joint research project funded by JST "ICT for a Resilient Society", of which he was the principal investigator. Under this project, five Japanese universities including NAIST collaborated with Ben-Gurion University on the research theme of realizing stable operation of low-functional robots during disasters. After the presentation, they enjoyed a lively discussion about the research.

Next, they visited the Organic Electronics Laboratory to see Prof. Masakazu Nakamura, who used to conduct joint research with Tel-Aviv University. Prof. Nakamura guided the delegation through his laboratory explaining his research on flexible organic electronic devices and he introduced experimental facilities such as the organic semiconductor device manufacturing equipment and various original characterization equipment. The delegation were quite interested in the research and expressed their expectations about potential joint research with Israel.

It is expected that this visit will further stimulate educational and research collaboration between Israel and NAIST.