Programme for Japanese Studies


The Sasakawa Lectureship Programme for Japanese Studies

In 2007, we were pleased to establish a special Grant Programme in partnership with the Nippon Foundation under which we have provided funding for up to five years towards the creation of 13 teaching posts in Japanese studies in 12 universities across the UK.

The following is a transcript of the details of the programme given at a special press conference held at the Embassy of Japan in London on 4th October 2007.




A funding crisis of grave proportions for Japanese Studies in the UK was eased today following the announcement (4 October) of a major new grant programme, described as “one of the largest injections of recurrent external funding that the discipline has ever received.”

The programme, launched by The Nippon Foundation (TNF), a private grant-making foundation based in Tokyo, and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation (GBSF), will place £2.5 million into the research and study of Japan in UK universities over the next five years.

The grants, for academic staff, will establish 13 teaching and research posts at UK universities. The institutions benefiting from this programme are the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, East Anglia, Oxford Brookes, SOAS and Birkbeck College.

Speaking at the launch of the funding programme in London, the Earl of St. Andrews, Chairman of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, stressed the strategic and economic importance of Japan, and the urgent need for the UK to maintain its pool of Japan specialists.  “Japan remains the world’s second largest economy, and one of the UK’s most important partners for both trade and investment”, said Lord St. Andrews. “Expertise in Japanese language and in the country’s economy, culture, history and politics will remain essential if the British-Japanese relationship is to prosper, and British interests in relation to Japan are to be safeguarded.”

Japanese has become a vulnerable subject because it is expensive to teach, continued Lord St. Andrews, pointing out that many universities have cut back or closed departments teaching the subject over the last decade in favour of courses which bring in more revenue. “Any further diminution of our pool of national expertise on Japan would be highly damaging to our current and future national interest,” he warned. “We are losing this pool of Japan specialists at an alarming rate. These people have been instrumental in fostering and sustaining the close partnerships that the UK and Japan have enjoyed in trade and investment, cultural and scientific exchange and in a number of multilateral contexts. This pool of expertise is now under threat.”

The UK government made an attempt to address the growing crisis last year with the establishment of the Language Area Studies Initiative, which partially funded the National Institute of Japanese Studies (NIJS) at the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield. But funding still remains totally inadequate. Some 10,000 secondary school students study the subject and applications for Japanese degree courses have risen by 40.9 percent this year. The demand cannot be met.
The new funding programme targets the study and research of contemporary Japan primarily in the broad social sciences – fields such as politics, economics, international relations, contemporary Japanese thought, culture and society and Japan’s place in East Asia and in the world. “All posts,” said Lord St. Andrews, “are aimed at early career lecturers who will go on to form the next generation of Japan experts. All posts are to be filled in 2008.”

In a special message read out at the launch, The Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa expressed his “delight at supporting this programme for furthering Japanese studies in such influential and prestigious British universities.”
“The United Kingdom has been a leader in Europe in Japanese studies and has played a vital role in their promotion and development within Europe, and indeed, the world,” said Mr. Sasakawa. “We hope that, through this programme, the United Kingdom will again become the principal focus for research and scholarship, setting an example for other European countries to follow.”

Professor Mark Williams, President of the British Association for Japanese Studies and Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Leeds University, confirmed “the growing number of school children who are being exposed to Japanese language tuition at school. Whereas ten years ago, most of us in the profession would insist that all new students took our Beginners Japanese class, now we all have to cater for increasing numbers of those who arrive with an A level – or at least a GCSE – in the language… the importance of career prospects is a continuing motivating force for these students.
“For all the talk of this as the ‘century of China,’” he concluded, “it remains – certainly to us on the inside – that we ignore the need to nurture the next generation of Japan scholars at our peril.”



1.

Birkbeck College, University of London
Shinji OYAMA
Sasakawa Research and Teaching Associate in Japanese Creative Industries Studies

2. University of Bristol, Centre for East Asian Studies
Dr Junko YAMASHITA
Sasakawa Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Society
3. University of Cambridge, Dept of East Asian Studies/Needham Research Institute
Dr Aya HOMEI
Sasakawa Research and Teaching Associate in Japanese Science and Technology
4. Cardiff University, Cardiff Japanese Studies Centre
Dr Maki UMEMURA
Sasakawa Lecturer in Japanese Studies
5. University of Leeds (National Institute of Japanese Studies)
LDr Irena HAYTER
Sasakawa Lecturer in Japanese Studies (Japanese Cultural Studies)
6. University of Sheffield (National Institute of Japanese Studies)
Dr Harald CONRAD
Sasakawa Lecturer in Japan’s Economy and Management

Dr Bhubhindar SINGH
Sasakawa Lecturer in Japanese Studies
7. University of Manchester, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures
Dr Sharon KINSELLA
Sasakawa Lecturer in Japanese Studies: (Contemporary Visual Cultures)
8. University of Newcastle, School of Historical Studies
Dr Martin DUSINBERRE
Sasakawa Lecturer in Modern Japanese History
9. University of Oxford, Dept of Sociology/School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies
Dr Ekaterina HERTOG
Sasakawa Career Development Fellowship in the Sociology of Japan
10. Oxford Brookes University, Department of Anthropology and Geography
Dr Peter Wyn KIRBY
Sasakawa Lecturer in the Economic and Environmental Anthropology of Japan
11. University of London, School of Oriental & African Studies, Dept of History
Dr Christopher GERTEIS
Sasakawa Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Political History
12. University of East Anglia, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures
Dr Ulrich HEINZE
Sasakawa Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Visual Media

Some of the Sasakawa Lecturers at a reception at the Embassy of Japan.

This five-year Programme was a non-recurrent initiative. We are therefore unable to accept any further applications to it for post funding.

We do, however, welcome applications for good projects within the area of Japanese studies under our regular programme of grants. For details and an application form,

click here
 

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Dilke House, 1 Malet Street,
London WC1E 7JN
Tel: 020 7436 9042

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