On October 27, 2011, Hirano Toshio, president of Osaka University, led a delegation to pay a visit to SJTU. President Zhang Jie cordially met with Hirano Toshio and his delegation in the new administration building on Minhang Campus.

Zhang Jie briefly introduced SJTU's history and development. He stressed that SJTU had kept a profound cooperative relationship with Osaka University as 15 academic seminars covering material, physics and ship construction had been successfully co-held; therefore, he thought the visit had an active role in promoting both the cooperation between SJTU and Osaka University and the co-construction of scientific research centre in the future. Zhang Jie said that as a famous university in Japan, Osaka University had a similar construction of academic disciplines as well as its related arrangements with SJTU, which was worth SJTU's learning and practicing.

Hirano Toshio thanked Zhang Jie's warm welcome. As former Dean of the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, he has worked as president of Osaka University since 2011. He said he would deepen the cooperation between SJTU and Osaka University, promoting cooperation and exchanges in teaching and scientific researches between both universities.

The specific topic of the academic seminar to be held in Osaka University in 2012 is discussed, and an agreement is reached to promote cooperation in biomedical field. SJTU and Osaka University both hope to work together under the new innovative mode of cooperation to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the restoration of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations in 2012.

Hirano Toshio and his delegation also visited the Underwater Engineering Lab of the School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering (NAOCE), and the sand table model of Minhang Campus.