On 5 July 2024, the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation hosted the 4th Vulcanus in Japan Alumni Get-Together in Brussels, welcoming 130 attendees. The event was a great success, bringing together participants from Vulcanus in Japan sessions spanning from 1997, the very first edition of the program, to 2022, the last completed session back in July. Since its inception, Vulcanus in Japan has provided over 700 European students in engineering and science with the opportunity to spend a year in Japan, where they studied the language and interned at leading industrial companies, such as NTT, Canon, Hitachi, Asial, Mitsubishi Chemical, and many other.
The evening started with welcome speeches from Mr. Manuel Hubert, General Manager at the EU-Japan Centre, and representatives from EU institutions, including Mr. Marco Iacutto, Project Adviser at EISMEA, and Mr. Fabrice Terrac, Deputy Head of Unit at DG GROW - International Value Chains.

Throughout the event, alumni shared their inspiring success stories and ongoing work related to Japan. Among the speakers were Ms. Sarah Cosentino (Vulcanus in Japan 2006), a specialist in Robotics and Neuroscience at the University of Tokyo; Mr. Peter Buist (Vulcanus in Japan 1998), Manager for the Galileo Reference Centre at EUSPA - EU Agency for the Space Programme; and Mr. Jorge Pinho (Vulcanus in Japan 2007), Senior Research Engineer at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics and ex supervisor of Japanese students participating to the sister programme “Vulcanus in Europe” (*). These alumni highlighted how their experiences with the Vulcanus program served as a gateway to successful careers across various scientific sectors.

(*) Vulcanus in Japan created very interesting synergies over the years. Fully aware of the potential of the Vulcanus Project for a host company, several alumni decided to take part in Vulcanus as mentors. Some moved to Japan after the programme and offered traineeships to Vulcanus in Japan participants of the new generations. Other alumni who returned to Europe, welcomed at their companies Japanese trainees taking part in the sister programme “Vulcanus in Europe”.