U7+ Alliance Presidential Summit Held: Investing in Education and Research for Peace and Security

2023/05/10

Image: Meeting at the East Building

In May 2022, while on a business trip to the UK with President Kohei Itoh, I was participating in a remote meeting from a hotel lobby in London. On the screen were representatives from the lead universities of the U7+ Alliance (hereafter U7+). I proposed, "The 2023 G7 Summit will be held in Hiroshima. I would like Keio University to host the U7+ Alliance Presidential Summit, with peace and security as the themes." A short while after leaving the meeting, I received a message saying, "Let's meet in Tokyo next year."

Explaining the background of this requires some space. The G7 refers to the Group of Seven summit. It was held in the UK in 2021, Germany in 2022, and it had been decided that the 2023 summit would be held in Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima is, needless to say, the constituency of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the site of the first atomic bombing. In the invasion of Ukraine by Russia that began in February 2022, Russian President Putin has repeatedly hinted at the use of nuclear weapons, and the possibility of using nuclear weapons—which had been almost unthinkable for decades—suddenly increased.

In connection with the G7, there are organizations called engagement groups that aim to make recommendations to the G7. These include the B7 (Business 7) by the business community, the W7 (Women 7) by feminists, and the L7 (Labour 7) by labor organizations. Depending on the intentions of the G7 host country, these may be recognized as official engagement groups, but they are generally voluntary organizations formed by stakeholders and groups from various countries.

The U7+, in which Keio University participates, was formed in 2019 during the Biarritz Summit in France. It began when French President Macron called upon Sciences Po, a leading French university, to propose a "U7" consisting of universities. However, the U7 did not limit itself to the seven countries participating in the G7, but opened its doors to other countries, including the Global South. Therefore, a "+" was added after the U7. However, participating universities are limited to those located in democratic countries. More than 40 universities worldwide actively participate, and from Japan, Keio University, the University of Tokyo, Osaka University, and Hitotsubashi University are members.

After the Biarritz Summit in France, the U7+ was forced to hold its presidential summits online for the 2020 US summit and the 2021 Cornwall summit in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the G7 summit was held in Germany, but it was difficult to assess the impact of COVID-19 until the last minute. Therefore, the U7+ Presidential Summit was held on short notice at Université Côte d'Azur in France instead of Germany. In that sense, the 2023 U7+ Presidential Summit at Keio University was positioned as the full-scale resumption of presidential summits and engagement with the G7 after the pandemic.

After the decision was made to hold the event at Keio University, we held weekly online meetings with representatives from the lead universities.

We also decided to establish a new working group on peace and security to coincide with the G7 Summit in Hiroshima. It was encouraging that many researchers I know in Japan participated in this. In parallel, we spent several months preparing for a meeting with Prime Minister Kishida through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The G7 Summit was scheduled for May 19 to 21. However, providing input from the U7+ just before that would likely not be included in the G7's deliberations. When I asked government officials, they said they would accept opinions starting in January. However, January and February are busy entrance exam seasons for Japanese universities. Therefore, we set March 16 and 17 as the dates for the meeting at the Mita Campus.

It was not until early February that the draft for the working group was finalized. When it was circulated to the representatives of the lead universities, various requests came in. After those were finally resolved and the draft was circulated to all U7+ member universities, even more diverse opinions were received, and the final version was only completed just before the presidential summit.

Just as I felt a sense of relief, things did not go quite as planned. Originally, we had hoped for many of the presidents participating in the summit to meet with Prime Minister Kishida. However, the visit of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol coincided with this, and the Prime Minister's schedule suddenly became tight. As a result, at a stage when most U7+ presidents had not yet arrived in Tokyo, only three presidents went to the Prime Minister's Official Residence (surprisingly, President Yoon would go on to have a dialogue with students at the Mita Campus on March 17). Prime Minister Kishida, whom we met at the Official Residence, received our talk favorably. We handed him a document requesting that G7 leaders utilize university research results in policy-making and support young people deprived of learning opportunities due to wars and regional conflicts, while pledging that we, the universities, would become engines for generating innovation in peace and security. While it was a pity that only a few presidents could participate, I am grateful that the Prime Minister gave us his time.

The meetings on the 16th and 17th, where the presidents gathered, involved earnest discussions on themes such as peace and security, academic freedom and freedom of expression, and access to higher education. At the dinner held at the International House of Japan, ambassadors from relevant countries also participated, and Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Keiichi Ono, who serves as the G7 Sherpa, gave an explanation about the Hiroshima Summit.

It remains to be seen to what extent the G7 leaders will accept our recommendations. However, the presidents of each university returned to their home countries after promising to lobby their own governments. The ten months of preparation were very difficult, but it is a great achievement that the faculty and staff, centered on the Global Engagement Office of Keio University, were able to work together to successfully conclude the U7+ Presidential Summit.