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¡¡The logo of the Philippines-Japan Association for the Kuroshio Science Promotion, Inc. or PHILJAPKUS represents the research, academic, and extension collaboration between the Philippines and Japan with the abstraction of the Philippine and Japanese flags. The waves represent the continuing and sustainable promotion in the Kuroshio region. The intertwined Sampaguita (Philippine National Flower) and the famous Japanese Sakura represent the long-lasting friendship between the two countries.

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Name: Raul Giga Bradecina
Workplace: Partido State University, Goa, Camarines Sur, Philippines
Year of graduation: 2012

When he applied as president of PSU in 2015, Dr Bradecina presented a vision for the University which he will implement when he will be selected by the university governing board, the Board of Regents. He crafted a strategic plan of action for the university as a generator of knowledge, as producer of competitive professionals, and as a catalyst of sustainable development in the service area. His conviction about a university being a knowledge generator and producer of competitive professionals has been greatly influenced by his exposure to the system of instructions in Kochi University as a research academic institution which trains the intellectual capital of its society that supports a knowledge-based economy. His advocacy for the university as a catalyst of development has been immensely inspired by his deep immersion on the pedagogical framework adopted by the Graduate School of Kuroshio Science to nurture talented individuals towards the promotion of sustainable communities along the Kuroshio Sphere of influence.

Dr Bradecina was a 2009 JSPS Ronpaku PhD Dissertation scholar. He has been an active researcher and community extension worker, a dean, and research director of PSU before he became a Ronpaku scholar at Kochi University. After his graduation from Kochi University, he became the Vice President for Research and Extension where he managed all of the research and community extension programs and projects implemented by university faculty members. He crafted the university research and extension agenda that tackle current development issues such as protection and conservation of coastal, marine and freshwater ecosystems, sustainable resource utilization and livelihood, and resilient communities.

I am currently working as President of Partido State University (PSU) , a state-funded higher education institution composed of seven campuses distributed in Partido District, an aggregation of ten adjacent local government units in southeastern Philippines. My task is to manage the four functions of the University namely, instructions, research, extension and income generation. This is apart from overseeing the day-to-day operation of the university which consisted of administrative and financial responsibilities to support the needs of around 500 faculty members both tenured and non-tenured, 300 administrative and support personnel and more than 6,000 students. The insights I learned from my graduate education and the Kuroshio graduate program provided me deep understanding about the concepts of sustainable governance, social capital, resource management, economic incentives and policy analysis and economic valuation which have strong link and significant application in managing the operations of higher education institution and in the conceptualization and implementation of socially relevant and development oriented research and community extension programs. As an academic leader, I am expected to aggressively pursue the university direction for internationalization, or engagements of our university for co-creation, knowledge sharing and student mobilization with universities abroad. My relationship with Kochi University as its alumnus provided the initial network, and its Kuroshio Science research collaboration with partner universities in the Philippines offered the catalytic opportunity for me to pump –prime PSU’s internationalization strategic plan into action.

Name: Takeshi Hirayama
Workplace: Nissui Corporation
Year of graduation: 2007

While job hunting, Dr. Hirayama had been thinking about leveraging his knowledge of fish diseases, which he had learned in the laboratory, to work as a university researcher or for a fermentation-related company. However, he joined his current company after introducing the content of his degree research, which he was responsible for while he was a student at Kochi University, to the Central Research Laboratory at Nissui (then Nippon Suisan).

After joining Nissui, he spent five years as a researcher at the Central Research Laboratory, where he conducted research on fish diseases while working out of Saiki City in Oita Prefecture. In his sixth year, he was transferred to Chile in South America for five years, with his primary mission being to handle fish diseases that had become problems in the aquaculture business in Chile. Upon returning to Japan, he went back to the Aquaculture Business Promotion Department , where he is engaged in projects such as the development of new businesses

As a company, we intend to maintain our focus on aquaculture businesses going forward. In this context, I feel that as a specialist in fish diseases-one of only about five such experts in the entire company-it is my mission to ensure the stable operation of new businesses, which includes fish disease countermeasures at large-scale aquaculture sites.

The environment surrounding aquaculture businesses is faced with various challenges, such as increasing the scale of aquaculture for main target fish species and reducing the use of antibiotics, but I believe that there are many situations in which I can utilize what I have learned and experienced up to this point. Furthermore, we are also looking into expanding sales to other countries of fish species that are farmed on a large scale overseas, as well as overseas expansion of products farmed in Japan. As the field in which I can flourish continues to expand globally, I would like to grow even more as an aquaculture professional.