Professor Jun Kobayashi, the Graduate School of Health Sciences has received the 2023 Japanese Society of Tropical Medicine (JSTM) Award, and the award ceremony was held at Yasuda Auditorium, the University of Tokyo during the Joint Conference on Global Health held on November 24-26, 2023. The Joint Conference on Global Health was jointly organized by the Japanese Society of Tropical and Health, the Japanese Association of Global Health, the Japanese Society of Travel Medicine, and the International Society for Clinical Medicine, and was attended by more than 1,500 participants.

The Japanese Society of Tropical Medicine is the oldest in the four global health societies, and this was its 65th annual meeting, and the 20th presentation ceremony of the Society of Tropical Medicine Award, the most prestigious award of the society. The reason for the award was stated as “In recognition of research output and policy proposals that contribute to the international dissemination of school health. Professor Kobayashi participated in the Hashimoto Initiative project proposed in 1997, and provided the scientific basis for the promotion of school-based parasite control. After the national project ended in 2008, he established the Japanese Consortium for Global School Health Research as a think tank originating from Japan and Asia. The Consortium has been highly evaluated for its ongoing efforts to conduct research that contributes to the international promotion of school health that address new health and educational issues, with research partners in Japan and overseas, and for the results it has produced.

This is the third award from the University of the Ryukyus, with Professor Kaoru Nonaka receiving the award in 2005 and Professor Tetsu Yamashiro in 2009, and it can be mentioned that University of the Ryukyu’s contribution to tropical medicine and global health has been highly evaluated. Professor Yamashiro is currently the President of the JSTM, and the award was presented to Professor Kobayashi by President Yamashiro.