Hokkaido-Melbourne Health Sciences collaborations continue to grow

Delegates were welcomed by Dean Yano (front middle) and colleagues

The year 2024 was when the Health Sciences academics at Hokkaido University (HU) and the University of Melbourne (UoM) were pleased to see its steady progress of budding inter-departmental partnerships. From the 24^th to 27^th of September 2024, the delegates of the Melbourne School of Health Sciences were sent to HU’s Faculty of Health Sciences. The delegation was led by Associate Professor Dani Tomlin, Head of the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology and Deputy Head of the School, and comprises Associate Professor Fiona Dobson, Head of the Department of Physiotherapy, Associate Professor Kwang Cham, School Director of Education Research, Senior Lecturer Kelley Graydon, School Director of Learning and Teaching, and Dr Celen YL Yap, Research Fellow in Emergency Care as a representative of the Department of Nursing.

Associate Professor Tomlin

People gathered to discuss future steps of collaborations

Melbourne academics were warmly welcomed by Professor Rika Yano, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Mina Samukawa in Sports Physical Therapy and research collaborators in HU: Professor Daisuke Sawamura and Associate Professor Naoya Hasegawa in Rehabilitation Science who have worked in Allied Healthcare Professional Development for Older Adults with aforementioned Associate Professor Cham; Professor Atsuko Ikeda who works on Living Environment and Health Impacts with UoM’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning; Professor Taro Yamauchi, Director of the Center for Environmental Health Sciences who works with faculties in Global Health and Indigenous Studies; and Professor Katsuhiko Ogasawara, an awardee of the Hokkaido-Melbourne Joint Research Workshops Fund 2024 for Medical AI and Digital Health.

Doctoral students with UoM and HU academics

This official visit was a reciprocal visit to Dean Yano’s visit to Melbourne in the previous year, and the agenda included meetings with HU’s local collaborators as Naka Corporation which produces handrails for toilet support in hospitals and care houses for older adults or people with special needs, etc., introductions on the HU Health Innovation & Technology Center to promote industry-collaborating projects via lipid analysis molecular and functional bio-imaging and HU Hospital and Sapporo-based medical institutions, and HU doctoral students’ pitch presentations which were warmly welcomed and commented by the delegates.

A team of Health Science academics from both universities has secured funding for their project titled as ‘Developing and Implementing Health Promotion Strategies to Extend Healthy Lifespan: A Japan-Australia Collaboration’ from the Promotion of Joint International Research of KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and the inter-departmental collaborations have been expanded in cooperation with the UoM’s Faculty of Engineering and IT and HU’s Research Faculty of Agriculture, etc. The partnership will work as a driver to grow research and education in Health Sciences of two universities in years to come.

Text and photos provided by the Faculty of Health Sciences
and Office for International Collaborations