December 2–4, 2009
The Board of Directors Meeting (BOD) and the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association of East Asian Research Universities (AEARU) were held at Tohoku University Katahira Campus and a hotel in Sendai, hosted by Tohoku University. The AEARU Chairperson is Kyoto University (KU) President Hiroshi Matsumoto. The Meetings drew the attendance of approximately 50 individuals, mainly presidents and vice-presidents of 16 research universities; six from Japan, four from China, three from Korea, two from Taiwan and one from Hong Kong.
The KU participants in the meetings were President Matsumoto, Vice-President Hidetoshi Kotera (Director of the President's Office), Vice-President Junichi Mori (Director General of the Organization for the Promotion of International Relations), and three staff members of the International Affairs Department. Both the BOD and the AGM were chaired by President Matsumoto. At the BOD Meeting on the afternoon of December 2, the meeting members discussed the succession to the current Chairperson, whose term of office will expire at the end of 2009, as well as changes to the BOD members. It was agreed that the current Vice-Chairperson, President Tony F. Chan of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, would be appointed as the new Chairperson. The next day's AGM featured reports on recently promoted activities, approvals on future activity plans and the universities responsible for such plans, and the selection of Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) as a new vice-chair university. This was followed by productive discussions on general matters relating to AEARU's administration.
In January 2008, KU succeeded Pohang University of Science and Technology (Korea) as the AEARU chair university. Former KU President Kazuo Oike and current KU President Matsumoto will have served as the AEARU Chairperson for a term of two years until the end of 2009, when KU will be succeeded by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
 BOD Meeting |
 AGM |