In the year 2023, India Japan Laboratory (IJL), Keio University, Japan and Global Disaster Resilience Centre, University of Huddersfield, UK (GDRC) are organising joint seminars for the PhD students researching in both universities as an international collaboration initiative to promote the exchange of ideas on research and education in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in higher educational institutions. These seminars will enable the students to have the opportunities to present their research outcomes to be discussed and reviewed. Such opportunities will help the students to update their knowledge in the field of DRR education to hold constructive dialogue to explore innovative approaches in terms of both teaching and learning DRR. This joint activity is expected to create a much broader international initiative where case examples of innovative approaches and practices for disaster preparedness are to be studied and discussed as part of our scientific endeavour to contribute to the field of DRR research and education. The first session of this series was held on the 1^st of February, 2023 as a hybrid event and the theme for the session was “cities”. With 2 presentations from each research centre, the presentations and followed-up discussions lead to understanding how to better engage with cross-cultural intellectual research on cities in reducing the impact of disasters through coordinated educational actions.