Mr. Jikai Liu, vice-president of Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has a partnership agreement with our university, paid a courtesy visit to President Kiyoshi Morita on September 12. Mr. Liu was visiting here to take part in the international symposium called Bioactive Okayama 2012 held at Okayama University on September 13-14, as the Chinese representative for the formation of the Cooperative Research and Educational Center for Important Plant Genetic Resources in East Asia (2009-2013). This is a JSPS Asia CORE Program being implemented by the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Okayama University's Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science.
Okayama University has for over ten years been carrying out joint research with the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences located in Yunnan, China, becoming in 2004 the first Japanese university or research institute to sign a partnership agreement with this institute, which is famous worldwide for acting as a storehouse of plant diversity. Our joint research has become particularly active following the selection by the JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) for an Asian CORE program.
While visiting Mr. Morita, Mr. Liu stated his hope to further promote joint research by graduate students. Mr. Morita stated his hope for ever stronger ties between the two institutions in the future through a wide range of cooperative research and student exchanges.

Photo: Mr. Liu (4th from left) meeting President Morita (3rd from left)