Kiyohiro Houkin

In October 2020, he became the 20th President of Hokkaido University, the first clinician to be appointed to the position. Under the slogan 'Shining a Light from Hokkaido upon the World', the university announced its commitment to university reform by improving its finances and strengthening its research capabilities.

In July 2023, under Houkin's initiative, Hokkaido University published its medium-term vision 'HU VISION 2030'. and proposed the 'Novel Japan University Model' as the type of university it should aim to become by 2030, which uses education and research as its assets to generate social co-creation and bring about a large social impact. In HU VISION 2030, strengthening research capabilities is positioned as an important objective, while science and technology, innovation and Top 10% papers produced by research capabilities are referred to as 'excellence'. The ability to spread the results of such research to society and solve local and regional problems is called 'Extension', and the university aims to establish the Novel Japan University Model through both Excellence and Extension, and to realize the common global goal of a 'sustainable wellbeing in society.'

To develop its research capabilities, the university promotes collaboration with strategic international partner universities such as the University of Melbourne, and participates in the Hokkaido University Alliance.

It is also committed to the promotion of sustainability, having established the Institute for the Advancement of Sustainability in 2021. In 2022, Hokkaido University was ranked first overall in Japan and tenth in the world in THE Impact Ranking of universities' contribution to the SDGs, compiled by the British higher education magazine Times Higher Education (THE), and has been ranked first in Japan for five consecutive years since 2019.

Under his leadership, Hokkaido University has also focused on human resource development, advanced research and industry-university collaboration in the field of advanced semiconductors. The University established the Semiconductor Center Formation Promotion Headquarters on campus in October 2023 and concluded a collaboration agreement with Tohoku University in January 2024 to develop human resources and improve research capabilities in the same field. In June 2024, it concluded a comprehensive collaboration agreement with Rapidus Corporation, a semiconductor company operating in Chitose City, Hokkaido and agreed to strengthen its collaboration system with National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan; in August 2024, it concluded an agreement with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US for research and human resource development in the semiconductor field.