The Certificate Awarding Ceremony for Gifu University Rearing Program for Basin Water Environmental Leaders (BWEL) 2017 was held at Nagaragawa Convention Center on March 25, 2018. The ceremony was attended by President Hisataka Moriwaki, members of a program supervising committee, Dean of the Graduate School of Engineering and the Dean of United Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Two students at a doctoral program (one from Indonesia, one from Sri Lanka), twelve students at a master's program (five from Japan, three from China, three from Indonesia and one from Bangladesh) completed their studies of BWEL.

President Moriwaki handed out the certificates to the students one by one and gave them a word of encouragement in English.

On behalf of the students, Ms. Tharangika Ranatunga of a doctoral program of the United Graduate School of Agricultural Science (Sri Lanka) and Mr. Kota Watanabe of a master's program of the Graduate School of Engineering (Japan) gave their addresses in English. They spoke about their dreams and hopes after graduation.

BWEL is designed to produce environmental leaders who can properly assess and evaluate issues related to the water environment from multiple perspectives. Such environmental leaders are expected to address problems of water quality, water resource and protection of ecosystem that Asia and African nations are facing today. From 2009 to 2013, BWEL was approved as "Strategic Environmental Leader Development Base Creation Project" funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and even after that period was over, Gifu University has been implementing BWEL as its own university project. A total of 171 students have already completed their studies, and many of them are performing excellent work as environmental leaders in Asian countries.