Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
The Okoshi Cup: University-wide inter-laboratory soccer tournament to deepen inter-laboratory exchange
Keisuke Goda, Professor, Department of Chemistry / Haruki Takeuchi, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
The corona disaster has finally ended, and bright sunshine has returned to our university. However, it must be said that the impact of the coronal catastrophe on research has also been significant. This is particularly true of the lack of interaction among researchers. For researchers, interaction with other researchers and other research institutions is an indispensable element for the development of research. Usually this takes place at academic conferences, but with the Corona Disaster, most lectures and conventions are now held online, making it difficult to exchange opinions through casual chats, even though we can hear research presentations. As long-time researchers, we faculty members understand the significance of academic exchange, but for students and young researchers, it is difficult to understand the value of academic exchange that they have not experienced.
Therefore, we came up with the idea of organizing an inter-laboratory soccer tournament on campus with our colleagues with whom we have had previous interactions through soccer, in order to resume inter-laboratory exchanges for the benefit of students and young researchers that had been interrupted by the Corona disaster. We immediately proposed this idea to the laboratories that we thought might be interested in it, and we received 14 proposals from the Graduate School of Science (Tatsuya Tsukuda, Osamu Kobayashi, Osamu Nureki, Keisuke Goda, Haruki Takeuchi), Graduate School of Engineering (Junichiro Shiomi, Fumito Arai, Kazuya Yamaguchi, Keihiro Kawahara, Takashi Uemura), Graduate School of Pharmacy (Yuji Ikeya, Taisuke Tomita, Hiroyuki Kusuhara), and Graduate School of Medicine (Yusuke Urano). (Y. Urano), Graduate School of Medicine (Y. Urano), and Graduate School of Medicine (T. Urano). In addition, we asked Professor Shinichi Okoshi, Dean of Graduate School of Science, for sponsorship, which he graciously accepted. As a result, we decided to name the conference "The Okoshi Cup.
Scene on the day of the semifinals (Goda Laboratory and Takeuchi Laboratory)
The Okoshi Cup is a six-on-six futsal tournament played in two leagues, with the top three from each league advancing to the final tournament. The Okoshi Cup has been a great success, and the plan is to continue the tournament in the future, inviting participation not only from the 14 laboratories, but also from all Graduate Schools and Institutes in the university.
We also plan to hold the Okoshi Cup Symposium to promote more serious interdisciplinary exchanges in research. Ultimately, we hope that these activities will lead to joint research between laboratories and produce world-class research results.
Published in Faculty of Science News, September 2023