Advancing scientific research is essential to creating and configuring superb human knowledge. Over recent years, networks have been forged among researchers. High expectation is placed on their utilization in advancing important international joint research collaborations. This is accompanied by a growing imperative to support multilateral researcher-driven initiatives.

By simultaneously carrying out international joint research, the world’s technologically advanced nations can attain high levels of synergy while yielding innovative, knowledge-rich research results. JSPS’s new Bottom-up International Joint Research Program targets research fields in which such synergistic achievements are possible. Launched this fiscal year, the program creates a cooperative framework of multilateral support by JSPS and counterpart science-promotion organizations for international joint research projects.

JSPS-NSF International Joint Research Program

This program started with an agreement concluded between JSPS and the National Science Foundation in the US. The JSPS-NSF program seeks, via simultaneous support by the two funding agencies, to pioneer new frontiers in the field of chemistry and achieve a high level of synergy, amidst which young researchers will be fostered and researchers networked.

Driven by the creativity and zeal of excellent researchers in Japanese and American universities and research institutes, collaborative research projects are supported jointly by JSPS and NSF. They are scheduled to be conducted on the following themes: Chemical synthesis; chemical catalysis; theory, models and computational methods; chemical measurement and imaging; chemical structure, dynamics and mechanisms; macromolecular, supramolecular and nanochemistry; environmental chemical sciences; and chemistry of life processes.

The duration of support for each project is three years. JSPS funds them in an amount of up to ¥20 million per year or up to ¥60 million for the full three-year duration. A commission of up to 10% is included in the grant to cover administrative costs of the projects’ host institutions. Joint JSPS-NSF screening will be carried out on applications soon to be submitted under the program’s first call for proposals. The selection results will be announced around next June.

NSF carries out this program as a component of its “International Collaboration in Chemistry between US Investigators and Their Counterparts Abroad” (ICC Program).

G8-HORCs

The Heads of Research Councils of G8 Countries (G8-HORCs) was established in 1979 based on a proposal by Prof. Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, then president of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Japan joined the group from its sixth meeting in 1987. The meeting is held in a different member country every year. The 2008 G8-HORCs meeting was held in Kyoto, Japan, on 17-18 May. These meetings assemble the heads of leading research-funding institutions in the eight member countries of Japan, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Russia. The meeting’s closed, informal format allows a candid exchange of views among the members on global issues related to S&T policy and collaboration. To assure a high degree of freedom in these G8-HORC discussions, their contents are not publicly disclosed.

 

NEXT