IROAST Kickoff Symposium held on March 23

The IROAST Kickoff Symposium was held at the 100th Anniversary Hall on March 23, 2017. The theme of the symposium was “Cutting-edge Research with International Collaboration for Advanced Science and Technology.” Six distinguished researchers from overseas institutions were invited to give keynote lectures, and three young researchers from IROAST also gave talks on their research. Despite the rain, some 70 individuals attended the symposium.

	9:30 Opening remarks Shinji Harada, President of Kumamoto University

	9:40 Introduction of IROAST Takashi Hiyama, IROAST Director

	10:00 Dr. Jorge Beltramini, IROAST Visiting Professor (Host: Prof. Shinya Hayami) The University of Queensland, Australia "Multi-Scale Material Synthesis and Catalyst Engineering for Sustainable Production of Chemicals and Fuels"

	10:40 Dr. Ramesh Shanmughom Pillai, IROAST Visiting Professor (Host: Prof. Tokio Tani) University of Geneva, Switzerland "Small Noncoding RNAs In Germline Genome Defense"

	11:15 Coffee break

	11:30 Dr. Josep-Lluis Barona-Vilar, IROAST Visiting Professor (Host: Prof. Hirotaka Ihara) Universidad de Valencia, Spain "The social organization of scientific research. A historical perspective."

	12:10 Dr. Pawl Bowen, The University of Birmingham, UK (Host: Prof. Kazuki Takashima) "Research at the University of Birmingham-Industrial Partnerships, International Activities and Strategies"

	12:45 Lunch break (6 keynote speakers, President, Vice President, IROAST Director and IROAST Vice Director)

	13:40 Dr. Konstantinos Kontis, IROAST Visiting Professor (Host: Prof. Seyed Hamid Reza Hosseini) University of Glasgow, UK "Cross-disciplinary approaches to challenges in Engineering: Driving Forward Fluid Dynamics Research"

	14:20 Dr. Supri Soengkono, IROAST Visiting Professor (Host: Prof. Toshiyuki Tosha) GNS Science, New Zealand "Geothermal Energy-past and future"

	14:55 Coffee break

	15:10 Dr. Atsushi Sainoki, IROAST Associate Professor "Prevention and Application of Induced Seismicity for Sustainable Energy Development"

	15:50 Dr. Aeju Lee, IROAST Associate Professor "Polymeric Nanoconstructs for Combination Therapy and Multimodal Imaging"

	16:30 Dr. Takashi Ishida, IROAST Assistant Professor "Molecular Insights into robustness and flexibility in plant morphogenesis"

	17:05 Closing remarks Jun Otani, IROAST Vice-Director