The very first GCOE SRC summer program “Bridging the Borderlands Studies between East and West” took place from July 27 to August 4, 2010. We had participants from various countries including Canada, UK, Australia, Finland, Russia, China and Macedonia. The lectures of the first week of the program consisted of talks on Japan’s borders and border issues, migration in Central Asia and Russia, and border issues in Central Europe. The second week consisted of talks on borders in East and South Asia and non-traditional security issues including piracy. In between the two weeks, the participants delivered their paper at the Young Researchers’ Workshop and went on a field work trip to the Hakodate City, southern part of Hokkaido.

Though the program ended in a success, our GCOE members will take into consideration the feedbacks from the participants and work toward to improve the program for next year.

Thank you to the participants and lecturers for wonderful presentations and exciting discussions and also to the GCOE members for their relentless efforts.

Till next summer!