Kyushu U welcomes students from The University of Queensland, Australia

Kyushu University welcomed 15 Queensland University (UQ) students to the engineering department from November 28 to December 9, 2022, as part of the two-week University of Queensland Japan Program for Industrial Experience (UQ-JPIE).

The Australian government's New Colombo Plan provides support for UQ-JPIE. The goal of this program is to provide 15 UQ students who will become tomorrow's scientists and engineers with the chance to gain first-hand knowledge of world-class Japanese engineering, science and technology research conducted at the Faculty of engineering at Kyushu University.

This program started in 2017 and has been held annually since then. Due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been suspended for 2020 and 2021.

The opening ceremony was held on Monday 28th of November. Distinguished guests present included Mr. Trevor Holloway, Australian Consul-General Osaka, who gave a lecture on "The Australia – Japan relationship – seen from Kyushu" as a theme. During this program, the participating students attended lectures and visited representative industries in Kyushu, covering a wide range of engineering fields. 

A “buddy program” was arranged where each participant was assigned a Japanese student "buddy" for their stay. They shared many enjoyable and rewarding experiences with their buddies.

The students were able to gain a sense of the current status of Japanese engineering technology and the history of its development, as well as learning about Japanese business culture.