2024 New Year’s Greetings by the President

“Light from the North” — Towards an Unparalleled, ‘Globally Visible’ University —

First of all, I would like to express my deepest condolences to those who lost their lives in the Noto Peninsula Earthquake of 2024 which struck on the first day of the new year, and my heartfelt sympathy to all those affected by the disaster.

In this New Year’s address, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the vision of Hokkaido University for the future.

Every university has its own founding history and founding ethos. Hokkaido University is particularly unique in terms of how it was founded, which I have discussed on previous occasions. Needless to say, the diversity of universities represented by these founding ethos is extremely important. Furthermore, regardless of such diversity, the founding body, regional characteristics, or scale, I believe that there should be a common societal significance in the organization called “university.”

In formulating our new vision, “HU VISION 2030,” which we announced last July, we found it essential to contemplate the universal mission of the University. Through careful deliberation, we concluded that the mission of the University is to aim for the sustainable well-being of the “Earth,” “Society,” and “People” through the three activities of “Education,” “Research,” and “Co-creation with Society.” Well-being is a concept used by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its charter to define “health.” It has matured over 70 years and has become a globally recognized concept. Moreover, it is considered a crucial concept, as reflected in the declaration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, outlining the kind of society we aspire to create.

Individuals, families, businesses, governments, and the United Nations are all working towards achieving well-being from their respective positions. However, the pursuit of this goal through the three activities of “Education,” “Research,” and “Co-creation with Society” is unique to universities alone. While universities are just one of many societal organizations striving for well-being, their role is distinctive.

At present, the sustainability of the Earth is in crisis, and there are also concerns about the decline of humanitarianism. Society and individuals appear to be far from achieving “well-being.” However, universities possess three powers necessary to overcome these multi-layered challenges. First is the power of education that produces global citizens full of will to change such situations. Second is the power of scientific and technological innovation, which serves as the starting point for solving societal issues. Third is the power to transform society by applying convergent knowledge that is synthesized from universities’ diverse research. We have named this social presence that leverages these three powers the “Novel Japan University Model.”

“HU VISION 2030” is the compass for Hokkaido University to take actions towards the Novel Japan University Model, which integrates two different axes; Excellence (innovative and integrated research, collaborative research, advanced human resource development, etc.) and Extension (community engagement, startup creation, promotion of industry-academia-government collaboration, nurturing innovation, etc.). Please take a look at the website for more details.

At the end of last year, baseball player Shohei Ohtani reportedly signed a 10-year, 100 billion yen contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. This amount is equivalent to our university’s annual budget. Through sports, he brought about significant social impact. I believe that the enormity of this social impact led to the extraordinary compensation in the contract. I consider this an example of the unparalleled and substantial social impact that an individual can make. 

Companies, educational institutions, medical institutions, sports organizations, local governments, NGOs, or countless small organizations together make up society. And every organization in society, regardless of its size or founding history, generates social impact, ranging from massive to minute.

Hokkaido University, as the Novel Japan University, aims to become a new university that brings about social impact unique to our university. We aim to shine a light from the North to the world and become a globally “visible university.” In 2024, please keep an eye on Hokkaido University as we strive to become such a university, and we sincerely hope for your various forms of support.

Last but not least, I sincerely wish for the earliest possible recovery of the areas affected by the Noto Peninsula Earthquake of 2024.

Kiyohiro HOUKIN

President

Hokkaido University