On Friday, August 28, the Keio University Student Conference (KUSC) 2026 Summer Camp was held at Hiyoshi Campus, marking its fifth year. Approximately 50 participants, ranging from elementary, junior high, and high school students from Keio University's affiliated schools to university students, gathered to discuss the realization of the SDGs and their ideal vision for the future beyond them.
The Keio University Student Conference (KUSC) is a year-round program for university students selected from all faculties. In the spring semester, students increase their input by listening to lectures from experts and discussing visions, goals, and targets. In the fall semester, they consider actions to realize the SDGs at Keio University and hand over their final recommendations to the President. During the Summer Camp held between the two semesters, they engage in discussions with students from the affiliated schools. The innovative ideas and unexpected action proposals generated here are shared at the Keio University Student Conference (KUSC) in the fall semester, leading to the final recommendations.
At the beginning of the camp, Vice-President Akiyoshi Okuda referred to Yoshiki Ishikawa's lecture from the spring semester. She called on participants to focus not only on resolving the challenges currently faced but also on the perspective of well-being, such as how to pass on existing positive legacies to future generations.
Next, President Kohei Itoh reaffirmed the importance of thinking about a sustainable world by mentioning the current state of climate change, including the recent massive flooding caused by glacial melting in Nepal, and the current situation surrounding academic freedom in the United States, citing Stanford University's motto, "The wind of freedom blows." Additionally, Professor Norichika Kanie of the Graduate School of Media and Governance, who serves as a supervisor for the Keio University Student Conference (KUSC), made a new proposal: that the "vague anxieties" felt in daily life are the source of solving familiar problems, and suggested incorporating this perspective into the discussions.
This year, new approaches were also introduced to the management of the camp. Until last year, participants changed discussion groups between the morning and afternoon sessions, emphasizing that diverse participants think about multiple themes. This year, each participant stayed in the same group throughout the day to delve deeper into a single theme, discussing goals in the morning and actions in the afternoon. It was evident that the relationships of trust within the groups deepened, and the fact that new outcomes could be obtained by trying new things was an important lesson from an educational perspective.
In the morning, participants were divided into four groups—"Environment," "Society," "Economy," and "Partnership"—to discuss the theme of "What Keio University should aim to be in 2050." Following lunch, the afternoon discussion focused on "actions for schools and Keio University to realize those goals" based on the visions identified in the morning. While the participants were engaged in heated discussions, teachers from each affiliated school also gathered in a separate room. Under the moderation of Professor Hiromitsu Kobayashi of the Faculty of Law, who serves as the representative of the Keio University Student Conference (KUSC) project, they discussed SDG initiatives at each school and future collaborations.
After the discussions, each group presented ideas such as "improving the comfort of the campus," "partnerships that Keio University can create," and "leading to the achievement of the SDGs by protecting the well-being of current students." A lively Q&A session followed, and finally, after feedback from Masaki Okamoto, Director of the Research and Education Center for Natural Sciences, the Summer Camp came to a close.