On the 13th of May, the  festival hall of the University of Bonn definitely looked more Asian than European, because the “Waseda University Day” was celebrated for the fourth time. The University of Bonn and the Waseda University in Tokyo have been working closely together for almost 60 years, which is also supported by other institutions, such as the DAAD and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Rector Prof. dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch welcomed Waseda President Prof. Dr. Aiji Tanaka, who traveled to Bonn with a 34-member delegation. Both Prof. Hoch and Prof. Tanaka emphasized the importance of cooperation. “Our universities can complement each other, for example in the field of engineering, which does not exist in Bonn,” said the Bonn Rector.

What the cooperation between the two universities looks like and how it developed was demonstrated by Prof. Kiochiro Agata, who was recently appointed Ambassador of the University of Bonn at Waseda University. And not only that: He belongs to the first generation of those who have used the opportunity for exchange, and was even some time at the University of Bonn. He gave impressive numbers in his lecture: Since 1960, 3074 Japanese have come to the University of Bonn, 425 Germans have used the opportunity to research in Japan. In addition, Agata also formulated the tasks of this partnership for the future. This includes the plans to recruit more women for university exchange and to set up an alumni network.

Subsequently, representatives of both universities presented concrete examples of joint research in the fields of life sciences, robotics, sustainable development, philosophy and Japanese studies. In the afternoon workshops took place on these topics - i.a. the “Individual Research Workshop on Advanced Research for Aging Society” at the LIMES Institute, Waseda University’s longstanding partner institute in the field of biomedicine, chemical biology and medicinal chemistry.