President Nakano Joins Virtual U7+ Alliance Summit
On October 25, 2021, the third U7+ Alliance of World Universities Presidential Summit was held online, and President Satoshi Nakano participated in the summit from Hitotsubashi University.
Under the patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron, the inaugural U7+ summit took place in July 2019 on the campus of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, commonly referred to as Sciences Po, in the center of Paris. The purpose of the summit is for an alliance of universities to tackle pressing global challenges by sparking dialogue on the challenges and communicating their vision and proposition to the international community. The name “U7+” refers to universities in the G7 counties, along with universities in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Oceania, and other regions.
From Japan, four universities Hitotsubashi University, Osaka University, Keio University, and the University of Tokyo have participated in all the annual summits held so far.
The second U7+ Summit was hosted online by Northwestern University in the United States in November 2020. Prior to the summit, volunteer students from participating universities organized the U7+ Worldwide Student Forum to have the voices of students heard and reflected in the discussion at the summit.
This time, the leaders from 29 universities across 12 countries gathered virtually for the third U7+ Presidential Summit, hosted by Imperial College London and other universities in the United Kingdom. In view of the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow immediately following the summit, U7+ universities unanimously adopted the U7+ Statement on Climate Change and Sustainability to express their resolution that universities around the world should play an active role in tackling global environmental challenges. The statement sets forth a set of commitments to be fulfilled by participating universities, such as providing students enhanced access to education on climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability, and setting specific targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
