国際ヒューマンケアリング学会（International Association for Human Caring：IAHC）は、1978年に故レイニンガー（Madeleine Leininger）博士が創設し、看護理論家、ケアリング学者、大学人、教育者、研究者、看護実践者と共に歩んできた学術的・実践的な団体です。アメリカにおいて伝統のある国際学会のひとつですが、日本において開催されることはありませんでした。

ようやく，35年目の学術集会が日本の古都“京都”で開催される運びとなりました．テーマは「ケアリングの普遍性（The Universality of Caring）」としました．日本とアメリカ，そして世界の看護職者が一同に会し、国境を越えてケア／ケアリングに関して議論が展開されることを願っております。

ケアリングは、看護（学）の全領域において踏襲される“寄り添うこと、知ること、役に立つこと”であり、すべての看護（学）の原点、看護の本質であります。すなわち、基礎看護学、感染症看護学、看護管理学、看護倫理学、家族看護学、成人看護学、老年看護学、小児看護学、母性看護学、助産学、精神看護学、在宅看護学、地域看護学、公衆衛生看護学、遺伝看護、災害看護学、国際看護学、トランス文化看護学など、多分野横断的でホリスティックな側面を有しています。世界の仲間がこぞって京都にお越しくださり、ケア／ケアリングの普遍性とは何かを問い直すことで、その真髄を皆様と一緒に探求したいと願っております。

神戸大学大学院保健学研究科
看護学領域家族看護学分野・家族支援CNSコース
領域長，教授　法橋 尚宏

I am honored to be serving as President of the International Association for Human Caring (IAHC) and Chairperson of the 35^th International Association for Human Caring conference to be held in Kyoto, Japan, May 24-28^th 2014. The conference theme the Universality of Caring reflects the mission and values of our organization for we have nurses from all over the world as members, publishing in our journal, and traveling to our conferences. We have not had a conference outside of the USA since 2006 and this will be the first time that an IAHC conference will be in Japan. The relationships, scholarship, research, and intellectual discourses on caring that emerge from our conferences are the fabric of our organization and a source of energetic renewal allowing for emerging creativity in the area of caring theory/caring science. I have been involved with caring being a substantive area of study within the discipline of nursing and the IAHC since entering graduate school at Florida Atlantic University in 1989 and feel privileged to connect with nurses all over the world through my own scholarship and the IAHC. We will have scholars from all over the world presenting papers and showcasing posters related to the conference theme of caring being universal as we continue to inform and change nursing on a global level through caring innovations in education, practice, and research. Dr. Jean Watson and Dr. Marilyn Ray will be hosting a special tribute to Dr. Madeline Leininger on the evening of May 24^th to recognize her commitment to transcultural caring and nursing. In addition, our hosts from Japan have planned special educational tours for May 28^th. When we ended our 2013 conference in Orlando, Florida, Dr. Hohashi and I set our intentions to have at least 1,000 nurses from all over the world gather for this conference. Please help make our shared vision a reality. Join us for an experience of a lifetime, make it a vacation, re-connect with colleagues, meet new colleagues, find renewal, practice self-care, and enjoy the sites of this beautiful city and country.

In caring and peace,

I was privileged to be part of the human caring movement in nursing from the beginning, presenting on the philosophy of caring at the First Caring Conference in 1978 hosted by the late Dr. Madeleine Leininger with Dr. Jean Watson at the University of Utah, College of Nursing, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. As the founder of the caring movement in nursing, the first nurse-anthropologist, and the "mother" of transcultural nursing, Dr. Leininger was committed to connecting with colleagues in different cultures and different nations around the world. She passed along that legacy to all of us all over the world, and she would be overjoyed at our "coming together" here in Kyoto, Japan in 2014 for our conference on the Universality of Caring with our special interest in Transcultural Nursing: East and West.

I have been able to advance the ideals of caring, transcultural nursing and complexity science through my scholarship in transcultural caring dynamics. It gives me great pleasure to be in Kyoto sharing ideas, theories, research and practices of transcultural caring in nursing and health care with you, my colleagues from Japan. I also welcome our colleagues from other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), North America, and people from around the world. I look forward to collegial dialogue and opportunities to advance our collective creative ideas of transcultural caring science that will continue to contribute to vast change in the global health care community.

Marilyn A. Ray, RN, PhD, CTN-A
Professor Emeritus
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, Florida, USA