On 8 December 2017, Professor Brian Moeran and Professor Dixon Wong Heung Wah presented their cutting edge research papers on Japanese studies in Europe and Japanese studies in Hong Kong respectively. 

Professor Brian Moeran is the Honorary Professor of Global Creative Industries Program of the University of Hong Kong. He is a social anthropologist by training and has conducted research on advertising, art marketing, ceramics, fashion magazines, olfactory marketing, and the publishing industry -- mainly in Japan, but also in cross-cultural comparative perspective. He is founding editor of the on-line Open Access Journal of Business Anthropology. Professor Morean explained that Japanology was re-established at European universities with little changes in outlook in early 1950s though World War II interrupted Japanese studies in all European countries,  The focus of research rested on language and translation of Japanese literature. Since the 1970s, efforts have been made to expand Japanology into an exotic and eccentric academic field and the more modern comprehensive social-science-oriented area of Japanese studies.  

Professor Dixon Wong Heung Wah is the Director of the Global Creative Industries Program of the University of Hong Kong. He is a member of Advisory Board of The Japan Anthropological Workshop, Vice-Chairperson of the Hong Kong Association of Asian Studies, member of Board of Director of Japan China Sociological Society, Japan, Associate General Editor of Chinese Journal of Applied Anthropology, member of editorial board of Journal of Business Anthropology, series editor of Global Connections, SMLC Book Series with Hong Kong University Press, series editor of Routledge Culture, Society, Business in East Asia, series editor of East Asian Civilizations with Peking University, series editor of Bridge 21 Creative Industries in East Asia (Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan) book series and series editor of Bridge 21Consumer Culture in East Asia (Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan) Book Series. He currently is university guest professor of IEAS of Zhejiang Gongshang University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and Beijing University of Foreign Studies. He is also guest professor of the School of Ethnology and Sociology, Guizhou University for Nationalities and the Center for Japanese Studies, Fudan University. Dr. Wong also serves as Research Fellow, Institute for Cultural Industries, Beijing University. 

Professor Wong gave a historical review of the history of Japanese studies in Hong Kong from postwar period to contemporary academic trend of it He encouraged IEAS students and faculty staffs to have global outlook and language skills in order to adopt a critical and comparative approach for new original academic findings in a wide range of areas. In order to provide appropriate supports to exploit new academic findings,  it is indispensable to discern current trends of Japanese studies in each country and region. Professor inspired both IEAS students and faculty staffs to gather interest among specialists and analyze the academic surrounding the Japanese studies in each country. With its rapidly intensifying global exchange, ideas, objects and people are highly mobile. They travel in multiple ways, and with varying degrees of success have done so throughout history and around the globe. Given how intricately intertwined Japanese society of the twenty-first century have become, Japanese studies should also be re-considered from this challenging perspective.