The 3rd Student Meeting of Leading Graduate Schools

7 students of our program participated in the 3rd Student Meeting of Leading Graduate Schools held on June 20 - 21 at Hokkaido University. About 100 students got together from 27 Leading Programs and 27 countries for this meeting. Besides the workshop for discovering issues and solving problems, special lectures were given by Dr. Mamoru Mohri, the Chief Executive Director of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and Mr. Jean-Marc Fleury, a science journalist and the Senior Advisor to the World Federation of Science Journalists. The students also took part in a poster session to introduce each other's program.

Our 1st-year student Ms. Jiaping Zhang's team was selected as the best for coming up with an excellent problem solving idea and she gave a presentation in front of all participants at the workshop and it was definitely the highlight of the meeting. Our students made connections with other programs' students and having lateral communications was encouraging and inspiring for them.

Participation report by Ms. Yin Chuan (2nd-year student)
1. Purpose of participation
The conference in this year aims to cultivate problem-solving ability through the discussion to the problem modern society faced. Not only that, the prominent speakers who are active in the world will speak about the problems modern society faced as a major theme. It is a valuable chance for me to be more aware of the abilities which a global leader should have. Also, I would like to talk to the students from other school about our leading program and communicate with more people. I hope to deepen my own experiences through the communication among graduate students in Leading Programs and think about what Ph.D. holders should be.

2. Issues identified as a result of participation
The 3rd Student Meeting of Leading Graduated Schools theme was "Doctors, be ambitious! - Idea generation workshop toward resolution of the problems modern society faced." We discussed about how to suppress the mass consumption of paper and tried to find out a creative way to achieve it. It was expected that we could take advantages of our own special fields to find out detailed solutions. After the discussion, we made presentations and proposed the solutions to the participants in the same hall.
Besides that, we were given two speeches about "Challenging the Unknown -Universology-"and "Communication Strategies for Future Science Leaders" by Mr. Mamoru Mohri and Mr. Jean-Marc Fleury.

3. Results of participation
i. Special Lectures
"Challenging the Unknown - Universology" given by Mr. Mamoru Mohri who is the chief executive director of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation was about how we should challenge the unknown in the world. The world is full of mysterious unknown for us to explore. We should always keep our curiosity and interest to new things and be confident and ambitious.
"Communication Strategies for Future Science Leaders" given by Mr. Jean Marc Fleury who is the senior advisor of World Federation of Science Journalists was about how to show our research to the public. The importance of presenting our work was also emphasized.
ii. Introduction of each Leading Programs (poster section)
The purpose of this poster section is enhancing the relationship between each Leading Programs through the casual meeting. Since the modes of each programs are quite similar, it was quite significant to learn from every poster presenters. From the way they presented their programs, we could learn how to improve our description of the same thing.
Actually I have never done poster presentation before, I was a little nervous for the first time. Fortunately, every group members were so kind that I was able to finish my introduction smoothly.
iii. Workshop for discovering issues
From the viewpoint in worldwide, the paper resource is limited. As compensation of mass paper consumption, vast area in forest is cut down, and it has a tremendous impact on the global environment. The aim of our program is to train the next-generation leadership skills. We should have the ability to identify a variety of global scale social issues and figure out a way to solve the problem. The over use of paper is a big problem across the world. We found out many ways to reduce the consumption. But none of them seemed to be perfect. We need to consider about it not only in the meeting but also in our everyday life.
It was a great experience to discuss in a group. We proposed a lot of solutions. fought for our opinions(of course in a gentle way) and prepared for the presentations as a group. A single brain can't bounce different ideas off of each other. Each group member has a responsibility to contribute equally and offer our unique perspective on the problem to arrive at the best possible solution. I tried to learn how to communicate with others in a group because I was always good at communicating with people one by one.
iv. Communication with others
This meeting was the chance for graduate students with a variety of special fields in Leading Programs to get together in one place. I was very glad to know them and introduce myself to them. I was pretty sure that all of us would become elites in our fields some day. It was so nice to know each other earlier. Especially for some students who are doing the research of the same field with me, we could share our ideas and make more improvement. Maybe someday in the future, we will have some collaborations or work for the same institution.
Making friends was also an important aim of this meeting. Young students got together and made friends with each other. I considered this as a necessary section of training a global leader. Leaders should not be lonely elites, they always get help and friendship from others.

4. How will you apply what you learned to your research?
I am really thankful for this opportunity and try to apply what I learned from this meeting to my research and career in the future. One topic of my research is about cellulose which is the main ingredient of paper. The issue we discussed about made me started to think about searching new alternative to paper.
I will spare no effort to do my research and try to become an ambitious doctor student.