The Foundation has given grant support to the Clifton Scientific Trust which for some years has organised and run annual workshops for students from schools in Britain and Japan. The students live and work together for a week with academics in fields ranging from nanotechnology to sleep research after which they give formal presentations of their findings to an invited audience of professionals. The project demonstrates how engagement in scientific challenge can act as a powerful cultural bridge for young people and how, by working together to a common end, they come to know and value each other and to form lasting international friendships.

A grant towards a Japan-UK Disaster Mitigation and Sustainable Development seminar in Kyoto helped to bring together disaster risk management academics and emergency management practitioners from Japan and the UK to share evidence-based knowledge on disaster avoidance. As well as offering an opportunity to compare theory, policy and practice, the seminar progressed the establishment of a Japan – UK Disaster Risk Reduction Study Centre.

Kobe after the Quake.

A priority for the Foundation is to help the successor generation of scholars to develop lasting ties with Japan. A recent grant helped three young UK scientists to play a vital part in a major on-going research project at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency AKARI Centre at Sagamihara. AKARI is the first far-infrared space telescope. The group was able to use data from the telescope towards their own research as well as benefiting from exposure to world-leading scientists at Sagamihara.

A grant from the Foundation allowed Dr Bushra Al-Duri, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, to attend the 8th International Symposium on Supercritical Fluids in Japan. She meet key Japanese counterparts to further the development of a UK – Japan Research Collaborative Programme in Green Sustainable Processes using Supercritical Fluids, which will examine possible energy renewable resources and methods of environmental protection.

Japanese and British scientists meet in Nottingham.

Led by Dr Hallsworth from Queen’s University Belfast, a group of UK scientists travelled to Japan to examine dryness-loving fungi, living in humid conditions. It is hoped that this research will produce realistic models of whether life could function on other planets and dry extraterrestrial environments. While in Japan the group also gave workshops and lectures to disseminate their research.

Taking samples of fungi from a traditional building in Kyoto Prefecture.

As part of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 2005-2014 (a Japanese initiative), British and Japanese experts held a weekend conference for teachers from western Japan to promote a deeper knowledge of ESD and its objectives and to offer guidance on how best to build upon the existing tradition of shizenkyoiku (nature education). The conference helped bring Japan’s Tango Eco-Futures Park, and the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth in Wales into a close working relationship.