On October 23rd, the board and founding members of the Association of Italian Researchers in Japan (AIRJ), along with other fellow researchers, met the President of the Senate of the Italian Republic, Maria Elisabetta Casellati, at the Italian Institute of Culture (IIC) in Tokyo, together with the Italian Ambassador, Giorgio Starace, and the Institute director, Paolo Calvetti. The first official AIRJ board meeting was held shortly after in the Puccini Room of the IIC.