Primarily, the delegation of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Debrecen and the NeurotechEU Social Robotics Research Group in Japan discussed new joint research directions and further cooperation opportunities. The six-member delegation visited five local universities and a research institute.
A group consisting of employees of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Debrecen and members of the Social Robotics Research Group, which connects UD faculties and operates within the framework of the international university collaboration NeurotechEU, visited Tokyo and Hamamatsu in the Far Eastern countries. Discussions were held in the Japanese capital at Keio, Chuo, Tokyo Metropolitan and Hosei Universities, as well as at the Industrial CPS Research Center and AIST research center. They visited Shizuoka University in Hamamatsu.
One of the members of the delegation, Péter Korondi, a university professor at the Department of Mechatronics of the Faculty of Science and Technology, said that the roots of the Japanese relationship go back to 1993 when he was a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo for two years and developed good relations with several Japanese colleagues. Another member of the delegation, Péter Szemes, associate professor of the Mechatronics Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology, also obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Tokyo almost 20 years ago. He also made many acquaintances there.
The Faculty of Science and Technology’s Japanese relations have existed ever since, and even after guests working in technical fields regularly come here from there, they have become closer and more diversified over time. Hungarian specialists have conducted and continue to conduct several joint research with their Japanese colleagues. One of these is social robotics, the essence of which is the development of machines that can make people’s everyday lives easier at home or, for example, in hospitals and social care.
Péter Korondi added: since 2010, Japanese and Hungarian researchers have been sharing their experiences at a joint conference on an annual basis. One of the important milestones of the cooperation was in 2015 when the University of Debrecen became part of the Joint Japanese-Hungarian Laboratory for Integrated Intelligent Systems.
During our talks in Japan, we mainly talked about how we could develop new joint research directions with the involvement of students, and what further collaborations could take place
– said Géza Husi, dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, member of the delegation.
He said that discussions were held with the leaders of Shizuoka University about an institutional-level agreement. The situation of this university in Japan is similar in many respects to the situation of the Technical Faculty of the University of Debrecen. There are many strong industrial companies operating in the vicinity, and among them, the Suzuki vehicle industry company, which is also present in Hungary, and from which they receive a lot of support, occupies a special place.
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