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You are welcome to share your experience and opinions on international colaborative research and research exchange in Asia. See here for the Author Guidelines (PDF).
# ASTP User Survey Now Underway #
- Please take a few minutes to help us improve this Portal (click here)
[Projects] Leveraging Global Knowledge Exchanges for Engineering Systems Education
From Japan On May 11, 2011
Nobuaki MINATO
Project Associate Professor
Graduate School of System Design and Management (SDM)
Keio University
Outline of CESUN
The Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN) is an international university council centered on Engineering Systems (ES), which includes more than 50 universities from different regions including North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Dealing with tasks that cannot be resolved by conventional approaches in a single disciplinary area, we share the cutting-edge knowledge and experiences of multi-disciplinary problem solving, which integrates engineering, management, and social science. CESUN was established in 2004 under the leadership of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S. along with leading universities such as Stanford University in the U.S., University of Cambridge in the U.K., Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. A few members are from Asia including the Graduate School of System Design and Management of Keio University (KEIO SDM), the only participating member in Japan.
Diversity or uniformity – discussion at the CESUN
In 2010, the annual meeting was held at the University of Illinois in the U.S. As the only attendee from Asia, I reported about the ongoing multicultural and multi-disciplinary research and education at KEIO SDM. The most notable discussion at the meeting was centered on whether diversity or uniformity has more value in Engineering Systems education. It is necessary to understand diversity to accurately comprehend a wide range of complex elements, but at the same time a unified approach is indispensable to build these elements into an integrated system. ES education must have diversity to suit the variety of cultures in many countries and many companies, but education without uniformity can have a negative effect from the global perspective. Member universities acknowledged that there is no perfect ES education format, but agreed to actively promote the exchanges of best practices and research in order to enhance the quality of ES educational programs globally.
Challenges among international students at Keio SDM
International students at KEIO SDM are from a variety of countries. Asians, Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners and Africans are collaborating every day to master the design and management of systems. From Asia, we have students from Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, and Korea, and most of them take classes both in Japanese and in English. Some of them hope to write their thesis in Japanese but graduate level research generally requires a high standard of Japanese proficiency. There is a gap of expectations between those international students and their supervisors who would rather expect them to write a thesis in English. We are filling the gap with the assistance of Japanese students who would like to communicate with foreign students. Also, in my previous experience of doing joint research for developing the educational program for Asian space engineers, a wide variation in English proficiency was an issue. Compared to the students from countries where English is the native language, there was a huge difference in English skills among members performing the assignments. It was difficult to manage the lectures, and mix-ups in communication also occurred in the team projects implemented by the multinational members. Cultural differences could be resolved through mutual understanding. However, language differences cannot be overcome unless there is a certain amount of members’ efforts to master English or any other language as a common language.
Leveraging intercommunication in Asia and the world
Global exchanges at CESUN provided me with opportunities to visit to Purdue University in the U.S. There I found that foreign students from India who decided to study in the U.S. were also interested in studying in Japan among the Asian countries. As a matter of fact, last year we had exchange students from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who were actually from China but wanted to stay in Japan as a part of their study. I would describe this as a “boomerang phenomena” because the students follow a non-linear trajectory on the way back to their home countries. This is very interesting, because collaboration among Asian countries is being further promoted by Europe and North America acting as a pivot point for the leverage. It is not enough to promote communication only within Asian countries to demonstrate the strong presence of Asia in the globalized world. Rather, it is important to establish an exchange triangle of students and researchers among the three poles of America, Europe, and Asia, making the flow broader, faster and richer. I sincerely would like the Asia Science and Technology Portal to contribute this role.
From Japan On May 11, 2011
Nobuaki MINATO
Project Associate Professor
Graduate School of System Design and Management (SDM)
Keio University
Outline of CESUN
The Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN) is an international university council centered on Engineering Systems (ES), which includes more than 50 universities from different regions including North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Dealing with tasks that cannot be resolved by conventional approaches in a single disciplinary area, we share the cutting-edge knowledge and experiences of multi-disciplinary problem solving, which integrates engineering, management, and social science. CESUN was established in 2004 under the leadership of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S. along with leading universities such as Stanford University in the U.S., University of Cambridge in the U.K., Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. A few members are from Asia including the Graduate School of System Design and Management of Keio University (KEIO SDM), the only participating member in Japan.
Diversity or uniformity – discussion at the CESUN
In 2010, the annual meeting was held at the University of Illinois in the U.S. As the only attendee from Asia, I reported about the ongoing multicultural and multi-disciplinary research and education at KEIO SDM. The most notable discussion at the meeting was centered on whether diversity or uniformity has more value in Engineering Systems education. It is necessary to understand diversity to accurately comprehend a wide range of complex elements, but at the same time a unified approach is indispensable to build these elements into an integrated system. ES education must have diversity to suit the variety of cultures in many countries and many companies, but education without uniformity can have a negative effect from the global perspective. Member universities acknowledged that there is no perfect ES education format, but agreed to actively promote the exchanges of best practices and research in order to enhance the quality of ES educational programs globally.
Challenges among international students at Keio SDM
International students at KEIO SDM are from a variety of countries. Asians, Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners and Africans are collaborating every day to master the design and management of systems. From Asia, we have students from Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, and Korea, and most of them take classes both in Japanese and in English. Some of them hope to write their thesis in Japanese but graduate level research generally requires a high standard of Japanese proficiency. There is a gap of expectations between those international students and their supervisors who would rather expect them to write a thesis in English. We are filling the gap with the assistance of Japanese students who would like to communicate with foreign students. Also, in my previous experience of doing joint research for developing the educational program for Asian space engineers, a wide variation in English proficiency was an issue. Compared to the students from countries where English is the native language, there was a huge difference in English skills among members performing the assignments. It was difficult to manage the lectures, and mix-ups in communication also occurred in the team projects implemented by the multinational members. Cultural differences could be resolved through mutual understanding. However, language differences cannot be overcome unless there is a certain amount of members’ efforts to master English or any other language as a common language.
Leveraging intercommunication in Asia and the world
Global exchanges at CESUN provided me with opportunities to visit to Purdue University in the U.S. There I found that foreign students from India who decided to study in the U.S. were also interested in studying in Japan among the Asian countries. As a matter of fact, last year we had exchange students from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who were actually from China but wanted to stay in Japan as a part of their study. I would describe this as a “boomerang phenomena” because the students follow a non-linear trajectory on the way back to their home countries. This is very interesting, because collaboration among Asian countries is being further promoted by Europe and North America acting as a pivot point for the leverage. It is not enough to promote communication only within Asian countries to demonstrate the strong presence of Asia in the globalized world. Rather, it is important to establish an exchange triangle of students and researchers among the three poles of America, Europe, and Asia, making the flow broader, faster and richer. I sincerely would like the Asia Science and Technology Portal to contribute this role.