Young scientists are future world leaders who need to be prepared to overcome global problems. This idea was the main concern that led Prof. Nobutaka ITO and Prof. Seizo KATO from Faculty of Bio Engineering – Mie University, Japan to initiate a forum called “The Tri-U International Joint Seminar & Symposium (Tri-U IJSS)” in 1994. This annual event is conducted to expose young scientists to have international experiences while enriching their knowledge and widening their views through information exchanges of scientific and cultural experiences. Through intensive interaction and friendly atmosphere, the participants representing young scientists from various countries are expected to be able to create peace in the world by having mutual respect and understanding (culture, religion, and custom/behavior).

The global problem faced worldwide has been the dramatic increase of population, which then led to the problems of the food security and sufficiency, as well as of increasing energy demand and of disturbed environment. Thus, these four important issues are the annual topics discussed at Tri-U IJSS: population, food, energy and environment. Every year there are five topics covered in the Tri-U IJSS. The fifth topic is decided by the host.

The three universities – Mie University, Japan; ChiangMai University, Thailand; and JiangSu University, China – are the founder universities of Tri-U IJSS; and therefore, the event was named “Tri-University International Joint Seminar and Symposium”. Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) started to join this event in 2003 and has been participating continually since then. Due to this consistent participation and its good achievement the participating students have shown, IPB was accepted as the 4th founder university in 2010 and first hosted the 19th Tri-U IJSS in 2012. This year IPB will become the host for the second time for the 23rd Tri-U IJSS in October.