On December 8, 2021, Prof Kunihiro Ohta, Executive Director and Vice President of the University of Tokyo, held a lecture on the topic “The Transformation of Graduate School: The University of Tokyo Experience”. Prof. Ohta has been teaching in the Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences of the University of Tokyo since the year 2007.

In his presentation, Prof. Ohta shared his experience on the challenges and success stories of how the university transformed the courses in a rapid manner due to the disruption of the status quo and accelerated transition from the traditional way of teaching to blended learning in academic institutions by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, he also highlighted how his team gained participative support and acceptance from all key stakeholders (management, lecturers/trainers, students, academic staff) to implement these changes at a difficult time.

The attending students, research aides, research associates, and Prof. Ahlemann were all very interested in the lecture and all contributed to the interesting and constructive discussion following the presentation.