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CONACYT Director General
On 18 May, Mr. Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, director general, National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), Mr. Miguel Ruiz-Cabañas, Ambassador, and Ms. Sara Luna Camacho, third secretary, Education, Academic Exchange and Cooperation, Embassy of Mexico in Japan, paid a courtesy visit to JSPS. Based on a memorandum of understanding, JSPS and CONACYT currently support a program of researcher exchange between Japan and Mexico. CONACYT director general Mr. Romero Hicks and Ambassador Ruiz-Cabañas exchanged views with JSPS president Prof. Motoyuki Ono on possibilities of expanding the scope of the exchange program.
- Research Cooperation Division II Minister of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic
On 26 May, Dr. Miroslava Kopicová, Minister of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, paid a courtesy visit to JSPS president Prof. Motoyuki Ono. Dr. Kopicová offered a brief summary of the Czech government’s education, science and technology policies, especially the forms they have taken since the country’s independence in 1993. She emphasized her government’s interest in strengthening its bilateral partnership with Japan in such priority S&T areas as agriculture, medicine and energy. In response, Prof. Ono explained JSPS’s role as a funding agency in providing bottom-up support for research carried out on the researchers’ own initiative. Both Dr. Kopicová and Prof. Ono expressed strong recognition in the importance of encouraging further cooperation among excellent researchers in their two countries. - Research Cooperation Division I NSFC Vice President
On 28 May, a delegation led by Prof. Jiaguang Sun, vice president, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), came to JSPS to inquire about its system of grant application screening and project assessment. After receiving a briefing from JSPS’s staff on the screening and evaluation systems that JSPS uses in its Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research program and on the role of the program officers in its Research Center for Science Systems, the delegation met with JSPS president Prof. Motoyuki Ono, who took the opportunity to express his appreciation for the cooperation NSFC accords JSPS in carrying out collaborative activities between China and Japan. Both Professors Ono and Sun said they thought it would be very meaningful for their two agencies to communicate closer in sharing information on their respective programs, especially as they evolve with increased allocations of competitive research funding. - Asian Program Division  |
