Scene from the QS APPLE Meeting

From July 11th to 13th, The 3rd QS Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education (APPLE) Conference and Exhibition was held in Hong Kong and Associate Professor Kenij Watanuki of the Faculty of Economics, Mr. Masamitsu Mazaki of the Student Exchange Division and Mr. Atsushi Kurihara of the Science and International Affairs Division participated the meeting as the representative of YNU.
The QS research works for the Times UK in the “Times World University Rankings”, which started in 2003. It ranks the world’s top 500 universities including 33 universities from Japan such as University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Waseda University and Keio University. YNU intends to be ranked among them and has been preparing from many standpoints of view. This time, participating the 3rd QS APPLE meeting, along with the QS meeting held during the NAFSA conference in Minneapolis USA in June, was part of the project for strengthening the university’s international competitiveness, and worked further to gather information and interacting with people involved in this project.
The Hong Kong Exhibition Centre, where the meeting was held, gathered more than 510 international participants from 46 countries, in which the explanations concerning the trends of the ranking and advices for universities were given by the QS representatives. Also, many workshops with variety of topics were open to the participants such as globalization of the universities and current higher education situations from many countries, and has been an precious opportunity to know more about the higher education in the world. At the same time, an international exchange fair was held at the center, giving opportunity to seek many possibilities such as concluding new exchange agreement and exchanging students under summer program.
The next QS APPLE Meeting in 2008 will be held in Korea, hosted by Yonsei University and in 2009, in Malaysia, co-hosted by University of Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The “Times World University Rankings” is considered to be one of the most highly-recognized university ranking in the world, and it is expected that the university will strengthen their brand and international recognition once it is ranked as one of the best. Results for 2007 will be published this fall, and it is waited to be seen where Yokohama National University will be ranked among the top 500.

Regarding the “Times World University Rankings”, please visit;
http://www.topuniversities.com/

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