A Brief History of the National Science Foundation's
Tokyo Regional Office

William A. Blanpied

Christopher A. Loretz
Update and Revision:  January 2005

William A. Blanpied and Machi F. Dilworth
Update and Revision:  December 2007

Table of Contents

Overview

Origins
Cooperative Science Program
Expansion of US-Japan S&T Relations
Responsibilities in the 1960s

The 1970s
Ocean Drilling
Photoconversion and Photosynthesis
Earthquake Engineering Test Projects
Monbusho Interns
Responsibilities in the 1970s

The 1980s
Science Policy Seminars
Trade Frictions
1988 S&T Agreement
Takeshita and CGP Fellowships
JSPS and STA Fellowships
Responsibilities in the 1980s

The 1990s
Summer Programs for Graduate Students
International Rice Genome Sequencing Project
Tokyo Office Homepage
Responsibilities in the 1990s

2000-Present
Millennium Dialogue Report
Ad-Hoc Cooperation Network
Public Understanding of Science and Research
AWARE Programs
IODP
Tokyo Office Homepage as a Regional Resource
Cooperation under Framework Initiative of Safe and Secure Society (FIS3)
US-Japan Cooperation in Nanotechnolgoy
NEES-E-Defense
PIRE
Materials World Net

Coda

Acknowledgements

Appendix I:Heads of the NSF Tokyo Office

Appendix II: Data on Selected Japan-Related Programs

 

 

Overview

The National Science Foundation's Tokyo Regional Office, which was established in October 1960 and is located in the US Embassy in Tokyo, has four principal, interrelated responsibilities:

1. Reporting
2. Representation
3. Coordination and liaison on cooperative programs
4. Providing assistance to American researchers in Japan 

Reporting on science and science policy developments in Japan

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Tokyo Office issues Tokyo Report Memoranda (TRM) on budgetary, administrative, and policy developments in the Japanese government and on significant Japanese initiatives in areas of science and engineering. Since 1996, the Office has also issued a series of Special Scientific Reports (SSR), written by scientists, engineers and students who have visited Japan, on topics related to the research and educational activities that were the foci of their visits. Each type of report is disseminated to individuals on extensive electronic distribution lists.

Representation of NSF in Japan

The Director of the NSF Tokyo Office^[1] often assists officials from NSF headquarters in their interactions with Japanese officials. The Director also gives speeches to Japanese audiences on NSF and American science and engineering, and attends official functions on behalf of the NSF and the government.

Coordination and liaison on cooperative programs with Japan

The Office coordinates with various Japanese Government agencies and quasi-governmental organizations for the development and implementation of various programs, including cooperative research projects, joint seminars, post doctoral fellowships, and summer programs for graduate students. It also helps arrange itineraries for NSF visitors as well as other senior American scientists and engineers so that they can confer with Japanese officials and scientists whose work is relevant to their own.

Assistance to American researchers in Japan

The fourth responsibility of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office is to assist American researchers to obtain access to Japanese facilities to advance their research interests. To this end, the Office:

• helps match visiting U.S. researchers, especially graduate students and other researchers at early career stages, with suitable Japanese hosts;
• troubleshoots when researchers have adjustment problems, especially when these problems involve relations with their Japanese hosts, unfamiliarity with Japanese research practices, obstacles created by U.S. or Japanese laws and regulations, or requests from Japanese agencies for official NSF assistance.

Origins

 

The ways in which the four principal responsibilities of NSF's Tokyo Regional Office have been carried out during the more than 40 years of the its existence have changed considerably over the years, along with the expansion, diversification, and maturation of NSF's relations with relevant Japanese Government organizations and the Japanese science and engineering communities.

 

The Office was established in the U.S. Embassy in October 1960, 18 months before NSF assumed the responsibility as the principal coordinating, administering, and funding agency for American participation in the venerable U.S.-Japan Cooperative Science Program. The first head of the Office (whose title was Chief Scientist) was Robert Webber, a physicist who had served as Deputy Chief Scientist at the Office of Naval Research's London Office. Initially, the principal responsibility of the Tokyo Regional Office was to collect information on science and technology (S&T) developments in Japan and send reports to NSF headquarters in Washington, D.C.

 

Although information collecting and reporting was to remain important, the responsibilities of the Office increased significantly as a result of a June 1961 summit meeting in Washington, DC, between President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda. According to Norman Neureiter^[2]:

 

In 1960, relations between the United States and Japan were under considerable strain. Although a Mutual Security Treaty had been signed between the two governments, the decision to do so was very controversial in Japan and led to numerous, sometimes violent, demonstrations and protests, especially among university students. About that time, Professor Edwin Reischauer of Harvard University, one of America's great scholars on Japan, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs entitled, "The Broken Dialogue." His argument was that the ties between the intellectual communities of the United States and Japan had broken down and were in urgent need of repair.

 

In 1960, the newly elected President, John F. Kennedy, who had read that article, named Professor Reischauer to be his Ambassador to Japan. And when Japanese Prime Minister [Hayato] Ikeda visited Washington in 1961, in the welcoming toast at the White House dinner in honor of the visitor, the President drew on an idea from his new Ambassador and proposed the creation of three new US- Japan Joint Committees to improve relations between the countries: (1) a Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs at the cabinet level, (2) a Committee on Educational and Cultural Interchange, and (3) a Committee on Scientific Cooperation.

 

The first meeting of the US-Japan Committee on Scientific Cooperation was held in Tokyo in December 1961. A few months later (April 1962) the US State Department asked NSF to serve as the US implementing agency for the new Cooperative Science Program that was expected to emerge from the further deliberations of the Committee. Robert A. Oetjen, Professor of Physics, The Ohio State University, was named Chief Scientist of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office, and J.E. (Bert) O'Connell from NSF headquarters Deputy Chief Scientist. At about the same time Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) designated the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) under the auspices of Monbusho, as the corresponding Japanese implementing agency. Several other Japanese Government organizations were also involved with the work of the Committee, most notably the Ministry of Education (Monbusho), and the Science and Technology Agency of Japan (STA) ^[3].

 

The US-Japan Cooperative Science Program

 

In October 1962, representatives from NSF's headquarters in Washington, DC, met in Tokyo with their counterparts from several Japanese organizations to develop specific plans for what was subsequently known as the US-Japan Cooperative Science Program. This program was approved and officially launched at the third meeting of the US-Japan Committee on Scientific Cooperation held in Tokyo in May 1963 ^[4]. Three types of cooperation were proposed:

1 exchange of scholars through long-term visits and joint seminars and workshops,

2 exchange of scientific information and materials, and

3 cooperative research projects in areas of mutual interest, specifically

        a) Earth and atmospheric sciences of the Pacific area,

        b) Biological and medical sciences (including cancer research),

        c) Typhoon and hurricane research, and

        d) Education in the sciences.

For more than a decade after the first meeting in 1961, the Committee, consisting of the U.S. and Japanese co-chairs and committee members who were designated respectively by the Secretary of State on the U.S. side and Gaimusho on the Japanese side, held annual joint meetings to pave the way for the program. The overall philosophy, scientific areas and mechanisms of cooperation, were established by the Committee so as to effectively orient the program^[5].

 

In 1968 the Committee recommended that the program be opened to all areas of the natural sciences and to those social sciences disciplines that can be studied with the methods of the natural sciences.

Expansion of US-Japan Science and Technology Relations from the 1960s Onward

 

The June, 1961 joint statement of President Kennedy and Prime Minister Ikeda summarizing their agreement to establish the US-Japan Committee on Scientific Cooperation was the first of several bilateral science and technology agreements negotiated between the two Governments that were intended to further cooperation by involving agencies in the United States (and Japan) that were not party to the first program created by the 1961 joint statement. Early examples included the 1964 US-Japan Agreement for R&D Cooperation in the Utilization of Natural Resources (UJNR) and the 1965 agreement to establish the US-Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program for research collaboration on diseases prevalent in Asian countries. Later examples were the 1979 US-Japan Agreement for R&D Cooperation in Energy Related Areas and the 1980 US-Japan Science and Technology (Non-Energy) Agreement ^[6].

 

In many cases, NSF staff both in Washington and Tokyo participated in discussions leading up to these agreements. However with a few exceptions noted below, NSF was not involved in activities carried out under the terms of these agreements. This was due in large measure to the fact that the May 1950 Act of Congress that created NSF gave it the mandate to award grants to support basic research in universities and other non-profit organizations, and science, mathematics and engineering education at all levels.

Thus, NSF enjoys a considerably greater degree of flexibility than most other US agencies, many of which manage research facilities (either directly or under contract) where a good deal of their science and technology-related activities are carried out. Importantly, in many cases NSF is able to support activities that US scientists and engineers conduct outside the country without reference to a foreign government funding agency, although it welcomes assurances from appropriate foreign research organizations that adequate facilities will be provided for the proposed activities. Of course NSF also requires adequate assurances that the proposed activity is consistent with US and applicable foreign laws and administrative procedures.

 

In some cases, such as with the US-Japan Cooperative Science Program, NSF has found it advantageous to enter into and maintain formal bilateral agreements with foreign counterpart organizations to provide a framework for research cooperation, particularly when cooperation involves substantial investments of funds by both NSF and its foreign counterpart. However, even in these cases, the original 1961 US-Japan agreement that established the US-Japan Committee on Scientific Cooperation has proven to be remarkably broad and flexible.

 

Responsibilities of NSF's Tokyo Regional Office in the 1960s

 

With the creation of the US-Japan Committee on Scientific Cooperation, NSF's Tokyo Regional Office, in addition to maintaining its original information collection and reporting functions, became responsible for coordination and liaison on cooperative programs between NSF headquarters in Washington, DC, and the Japanese Government organizations involved with the work of the Committee. The Office also assumed representational responsibilities, serving as a principal point of contact between NSF and the Japanese science and engineering communities, with Directors of the Office frequently representing NSF at scientific meetings in Japan.

 

For many years, it was also standard practice for the NSF Tokyo Regional Office staff to brief American scientists and engineers who came to Japan under the terms of both Cooperative Research and Joint Seminar projects. This was considered essential since until the early 1980s, most American scientists had little knowledge of Japan and regarded the country as a distant and even somewhat mysterious place. By the 1980s, American scientists were becoming increasingly familiar with Japan, and jet travel had also become the norm. With the advent of fax communication and, particularly, e-mail in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Americans working in Japan did not feel as isolated as they might have felt 20 years earlier. Under these circumstances, standard briefings by NSF Tokyo staff ceased to be considered essential. However, the NSF Tokyo Office continues to stand ready to assist American scientists and engineers who come to Japan under the auspices of NSF awards, and follows their activities with interest.

 

Frequently, Special Scientific Reports prepared by NSF-sponsored visitors on the basis of their activities in Japan are posted on the NSF Tokyo Office homepage. Additionally, the Director of the NSF Tokyo Office often attends NSF-JSPS sponsored joint seminars that take place in Japan, in part to discuss with American participants research opportunities in the country for themselves, their postdocs, and their graduate students.

 

 

The 1970s

 

During the 1970s, NSF's relations with Japan expanded significantly, with Japan's agreement to take part in the multilateral Deep Sea Drilling Program, the establishment of the Photoconversion and Photosynthesis Program which ultimately was placed under the umbrella of the 1979 US-Japan Agreement for R&D Cooperation in Energy Related Areas, and a program in Large-scale Earthquake Engineering Test Projects under the US-Japan Agreement for R&D Cooperation in the Utilization of Natural Resources.

 

Ocean Drilling

 

One good indication of the breadth and flexibility of the 1961 Cooperative Science Program is that it has provided NSF with both the experience and the organizational ties with the Japanese Government and Japanese research system which have proved useful in negotiating more specialized agreements, particularly those involving large scale endeavors. Japan's participation, since the mid-1970s, in two successive deep sea drilling projects managed by NSF provides a case in point.

 

In 1975, NSF and Monbusho (through the University of Tokyo's Ocean Research Institute) exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Japan to join the International Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). The DSDP and its successors are multilateral projects designed to drill deep into Earth's crust beneath the ocean floor and thereby study fundamental dynamic processes of the Earth's system. During the early 1980s, the DSDP was redesignated as the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). Japanese scientists continued to be active in the ODP, with the Government providing an annual financial contribution, initially through the Ocean Research Institute, and more recently through the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).

 

Photoconversion and Photosynthesis Program

 

On occasion, NSF has found it convenient to use an existing bilateral agreement in which it had not previously been a major participant as a framework for a continuing activity. For example, in 1975 NSF and the Department of Energy (DoE) signed implementing arrangements with Monbusho and STA for research cooperation in the limited area of Photoconversion and Photosynthesis, cooperation that soon came to be referred to as the "photo/photo" program. This program was subsequently placed under the umbrella 1979 US-Japan Agreement for R&D Cooperation in Energy Related Areas. Under the photo/photo program, a joint steering committee met periodically (annually for the first few years, less frequently thereafter) to identify research projects involving primarily research visits by collaborating scientists to each other's laboratories, and information exchange seminars, held on topics of mutual interest. In 1999 the photo/photo program was terminated by mutual consent on the grounds that research cooperation in those areas had reached a sufficient level of maturity to be supported subsequently through the regular US-Japan Cooperative Science Program.

 

Large-scale Earthquake Engineering Test Projects under UJNR

 

Another example in which NSF has found it advantageous to make use of an existing bilateral agreement as a framework for a continuing set of activities involves the 1964 US-Japan Agreement for R&D Cooperation in the Utilization of Natural Resources (UJNR). Under the terms of the UJNR agreement, a joint US-Japan committee and several subpanels were established consisting of representatives of government agencies in the two countries, as well as working scientists and engineers from both non-government and government research facilities. Although NSF was represented on the joint committee from the outset, it did not become involved in any substantial joint research projects until the mid-1970s when it signed a Memorandum of Understanding under the Umbrella UJNR with the Japanese Ministry of Construction to initiate large-scale earthquake engineering testing projects. Between 1978 and 1999, NSF and the Ministry of Construction supported a series of joint, large-scale earthquake engineering test projects for reinforced concrete buildings, steel structures and several other types of building structures under the auspices of the UJNR Wind and Seismic Panel.

 

Monbusho Interns

 

During a visit to Japan in 1977, then NSF Director Richard Atkinson met with then Monbusho Vice Minister, Hiroshi Kida, who asked him if there was any possibility for NSF to receive a Monbusho official at NSF headquarters as a visiting researcher to study first-hand about how NSF operates and to visit a number of universities and other research institutions in the United States to learn how they are managed from the administrator's point of view. Atkinson gave his immediate positive response, agreeing to receive one Monbusho official as an intern each year for this purpose.

 

Teiichi Sato ^[7], the first Monbusho intern, visited NSF for one year beginning in March 1978. Since then, NSF has accepted one Monbusho intern each year. After the merger of Monbusho and STA in January 2001, these visitors have been designated as MEXT interns. Besides the close personal friendship developed between those officials and NSF hosts through their daily contact, the fact that NSF now has a pool of 26 MEXT officials in Tokyo who have a good understanding on how NSF operates and how universities and other scientific institutions in the United States are supported by the U.S. Government is in itself a valuable asset to NSF.

 

Responsibilities of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office in the 1970s

 

With the addition of the Deep Sea Drilling Program, the Photoconversion and Photosynthesis Program, and the UNJR activity to NSF's Japan-related portfolio, the frequency of visits to Japan both by NSF officials and members of the American science and engineering communities increased substantially. In view of this circumstance, providing assistance both to NSF officials and American researchers in Japan became an increasingly important responsibility of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office. The Office's liaison responsibility was augmented as it was called upon to help negotiate details of workshops and other activities organized under the auspices of the photo/photo and UJNR programs. Finally, the expanded interest in and involvement of American scientists and engineers with Japan expanded the audience for, and thus the potential scope of, the Office's original information collection and reporting responsibility.

The 1980s

 

Science Policy Seminars

 

By the end of the 1970s, it had become clear to officials at both JSPS and NSF that science and engineering relations between Japan and the United States had become so rich and productive that it would be advantageous for experts from the two countries to engage in occasional dialogues about their common interests in issues that transcended programmatic matters germane to specific science and engineering disciplines. To this end, a science policy seminar co-sponsored by JSPS and NSF was held at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, in September 1980. This event, subsequently referred to simply as The First US-Japan Science Policy Seminar, was followed by six other bilateral seminars, as follows:

 

• Science Policy Perspectives: USA-Japan (August 1982)
• Transforming Scientific Ideas into Innovations: Science Policies in the United States and Japan (February 1984)
• Engineering Education: U.S. and Japan (October 1986)
• Science and Technology to Advance National Goals: Science Policies in the United States and Japan (May 1989)
• Promoting Basic Scientific Research in Universities: The Changing Relationships with Government and Industry (November 1993)
• Science Policy in the 21^st Century: Bilateral Cooperation in a Multilateral Context (May 1998)

Most recently, another seminar in the series on the subject of Science, Society and the Internet was jointly sponsored by NSF, JSPS, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and took place at the East-West Center in Honolulu in December 2003.

 

The sixth, November 1993 seminar was held at the Turtle Bay Hilton Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the seventh, May 1998 seminar was held in Hilo, Hawaii; all others were held at the East-West Center in Honolulu.

 

Trade Frictions

 

Beginning early in the 1980s, the rapidly increasing US trade deficit vis-a-vis Japan resulted in serious problems in US-Japan trade relationships, as indicated, for example, in the US-Japan negotiations on the telecommunications market (1981), semiconductors (1985), automobile parts, and machine tools (1987). In most cases, inadequate access to Japanese markets by American companies was a pivotal issue. These disputes spilled over into other areas as well. In particular, questions were raised about possible connections between basic research cooperation and Japan's trade advantage. There was concern that since a larger fraction of US research facilities were open to visiting Japanese scientists than comparable Japanese facilities were open to Americans, the Japanese were enjoying an advantage that might be detrimental to the commercial interests of the United States.

 

The 1988 Science and Technology Agreement

 

The putative connections between research cooperation and trade and relative lack of access to Japanese research facilities on the part of American researchers, became apparent during negotiations for renewal of the 1980 US-Japan Science and Technology (Non-Energy) Agreement, which was due to expire in 1985. The United States proposed, and Japan ultimately agreed, that US-Japan bilateral science and technology relations had become sufficiently complex and mature to warrant the creation of a system that would permit periodic review of the relationship both to identify fruitful areas of future cooperation, and to avoid potentially destructive misunderstandings. Negotiating an agreement to accommodate this concept required a series of mutually agreed on extensions of the 1980 agreement. Finally, in 1988, a new, five year Science and Technology Agreement was signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita.

 

Unlike most other US-Japan Science and Technology Agreements concluded prior to 1988, NSF was substantively involved in the 1988 Science and Technology Agreement, and in amendments/extensions of that agreement made in 1993, 1999 and 2004. Several on-going cooperative programs implemented on the US side by NSF were brought under the umbrella of the Science and Technology Agreement. The most notable of these was the Ocean Drilling Program. Major new bilateral initiatives such as cooperation in Global Change Research also came to be incorporated under this umbrella.

 

NSF officials were also involved (and continue to be involved) in two of three joint bodies that were initially established under the terms of the 1988 Agreement to monitor the progress in US-Japan science and technology relations: a Joint High Level Committee (JHLC) consisting of senior officials from both Governments, including the NSF Director, and a Joint Working Level Committee (JWLC) to facilitate regular dialogue among working level officials of technical agencies from both countries. (A third joint body was also created: the Joint High Level Advisory Panel consisting of representatives from the private sectors in the two countries.) Several task forces were established under the JWLC, one of them being the Task Force on Access to R&D Facilities that was co-chaired by NSF's Deputy Director. This task force provided the framework for the creation of the Summer Institute for US Graduate Students in 1990.

 

Separate from but related to the Government-to-Government negotiations that resulted in the 1988 Science and Technology Agreement, in 1988 NSF and the Agency for Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding that had at least the symbolic importance of opening up all AIST laboratories (over half of them located in Tsukuba) to American researchers. This agreement was to prove particularly important with the creation by the Japanese Government of several fellowship programs for American (and other foreign) postdocs.

 

Takeshita Fund and the Center for Global Partnership Fellowships

 

Discussions leading up to the successful conclusion of the 1988 Science and Technology Agreement regarding the desirability of providing more opportunities for US scientists and engineers to conduct research in Japanese facilities evoked two related responses from the Government of Japan. Both responses widened the scope of NSF's relationship with Japan, and conferred new responsibilities on its Tokyo Regional Office.

 

When Prime Minister Takeshita visited the United States in 1988, he informed NSF (as well as the Office of Science and Technology Policy) about his Government's intention to provide a lump sum of Yen 600 million (ca. $4.8 million) to NSF for the purpose of promoting research visits by American scientists and engineers to Japanese laboratories. As a result, NSF was able to establish the Japan Science Fellowships, also known as the Takeshita Fund Fellowships. This fund enabled NSF to send approximately 100 American scientists and engineers to conduct research in Japanese university, government and industrial laboratories but it had been expended in 1993.

 

Anticipating that demand for research fellowships would continue after the Takeshita Fund was exhausted, at the end of 1990 Gaimusho began to negotiate with the US State Department for an alternative fellowship scheme involving US scientists and other scholars to be supported on the interest from a Yen 50 billion (c.a. $450 million) endowment created within the Japan Foundation^[8]. This supported approximately 15 US postdoctoral fellows per year.  The new Gaimusho scheme, which went into effect in September 1992, was administered, in the United States, by NSF and in Japan by the Center for Global Partnership (CGP), an entity established in 1991 within the Japan Foundation to help achieve closer relations between Japan and the United States. Ironically, 1991 was also the year that Japan's economic bubble collapsed. Interest rates declined during the 1990s, so that the funds CGP was able to make available to NSF for its fellowship program decreased continuously.

 

The CGP officially terminated its fellowship program for US scientists and engineers at the end of Japanese Fiscal Year 2000 (March 31, 2001), although it continued to support programs involving US scholars in the humanities and social sciences. By that time NSF had been able to use CGP funds to provide fellowships to over 70 American scientists and engineers.

 

JSPS and STA Fellowships

 

In July 1988, both the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Science and Technology Agency (STA) launched new Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs for Foreign Researchers (including but not limited to Americans) to conduct research in Japanese laboratories. The JSPS fellowships were for research in Japanese universities and interuniversity research facilities supported by Monbusho, while the STA fellowships were designed for research stays in Japanese government laboratories. For more than a decade, until 2004, NSF served as a "nominating" U.S. agency for recruiting and nominating American candidates to both fellowship programs. JSPS offered fellowships for one to two years to qualified applicants within six years of receipt of their PhD degrees. In 1997, JSPS introduced another program for shorter term fellowships from six months to one year in duration to applicants within 10 years of the PhD degree. STA fellowships were available for periods of one to two years and were restricted to applicants within six years of the receipt of their PhDs.

Subsequently, both JSPS and STA introduced short-term fellowships (also referred to as invitational fellowships) that were offered to any qualified PhD scientist or engineer for visits from seven to 60 days duration, and one month to three months, respectively. JSPS invitational fellowships allowed Japanese scientists and engineers in universities and interuniversity research facilities to host American (and other foreign) scientists and engineers, while STA invitational fellowships provided similar arrangements for scientists and engineers in national laboratories.

 

After January 2001 when Monbusho (JSPS's virtually exclusive source of funding) and STA were merged to create the new Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho, or MEXT), JSPS assumed responsibility for both its own fellowship programs and those of STA. Beginning in 2002, the formerly separate fellowship programs were merged into a single JSPS fellowship program which permitted qualified researchers to conduct activities both at university and government research facilities.

 

Responsibilities of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office in the 1980s

 

The NSF Tokyo Regional Office's liaison responsibility was augmented by the decision by NSF and JSPS to institute a series of science policy seminars beginning in 1980. The Office's director and staff were frequently called upon by NSF headquarters to assist in working out details of the seminars with their JSPS counterparts. The Office's director has also been an active participant in each of the seminars organized since 1980.

 

Japan's evident commercial success during the 1980s, particularly in high technology industries, resulted in increased interest among American researchers and Government policy makers in Japanese science and technology policy. As one result, the reporting function of the Office took on new vitality during this period, with considerable evidence that these reports were welcomed by policy level officials in NSF and elsewhere in the US Government.

 

Establishment of the Takeshita/CGP, JSPS and STA Fellowship programs also expanded the liaison and, particularly, the assistance responsibilities of the Office. It was called upon both to help negotiate details of the fellowship programs and to provide, on an ongoing basis, essential liaison functions between NSF headquarters and the three respective Japanese organizations in processing applications for the fellowship programs. From the beginning, the Office has also taken whatever actions have been necessary to assist newly arrived fellows to making adjustments to life in Japan, including putting them in touch with other US fellows.

 

The 1990s

 

Summer Programs for Graduate Students

 

During the 1990s, NSF's relations with Japan expanded once again with the creation of special programs for American graduate students.  In 1989 NSF's Deputy Director, who served as co-chair of the Task Force on Access to R&D Facilities established under the terms of the 1988 Science and Technology Agreement, proposed to the Task Force the creation of a Summer Institute in Japan for US science and engineering graduate students. The following year, the program was launched by NSF and STA. During its first year, the Summer Institute program brought 25 US science and engineering students to Japan for two months during which time they studied Japanese language and culture, and conducted research activities under the guidance of host scientists and engineers in government laboratories in Tsukuba. In subsequent years the number of participants in the program increased, while additional national laboratories, corporate laboratories, and a few universities were added to the list of eligible host organizations for the Summer Institute Program.

 

In 1993, the success of the Summer Institute Program led Monbusho to start on an experimental basis the Monbusho Summer Research Experience Program to invite American science and engineering graduate students to Japan for two months during the summer for a program of language and cultural studies and research work under the guidance of Japanese hosts in national universities ^[9]. The number of US students accepted into the program was later increased, with a further expansion to invite science and engineering graduate students from France, Germany, UK and Canada as well. Starting in the summer of 2002 and as a result of the January 2001 merger of Monbusho and STA to form Monbukagakusho (MEXT), the separate Summer Institute and Monbusho Research Experience Programs were combined into a single entity called simply the MEXT Summer Program in Japan. With funding still provided by MEXT, the management of the Summer Program in Japan is now handled by JSPS.

 

Between 1990 and 2007, over 1,000 American graduate students in science and engineering participated in the Summer Programs in Japan. Their evident success subsequently led NSF's counterpart agencies in Korea (1995), Taiwan (2000), China (2003: although due to the SARS outbreak in that year, the first cohort of students traveled in 2004) Australia (2005), New Zealand (2007), and Singapore (2008) to establish similar Summer Institute Programs.

 

International Rice Genome Sequencing Project

 

The International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (IRGSP) was inaugurated in 1997 to obtain a map-based sequence of the rice genome.  Through the National Plant Genome Initiative (NPGI), NSF and other U.S. agencies jointly funded research to sequence the rice genome, enabling U.S. participation in the IRGSP.  Japan’s efforts, as leading member of the IRGSP, were organized through the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF).  The IRGSP announced completion of the efforts in Tokyo on December 18, 2002. At that ceremony, NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences Mary Clutter delivered a congratulatory statement from the President of the United States.

 

Subsequently, the international group of rice researchers has formed the International Rice Functional Genomics Consortium (IRFGC). Scientists from Japan and US play a key role in the IRFGC. The IRFGC holds an annual workshop and the most recent workshop was held in Tsukuba, Japan. Both US and Japanese rice researchers continue to collaborate through the IRFGC.

 

The NSF Tokyo Office Homepage

 

By the early years of the 1990s NSF, in cooperation with several Japanese organizations (primarily AIST, JSPS, Monbusho, and STA) was offering a wide range of research and education opportunities in Japan for senior American scientists and engineers, post docs, and graduate students. Coincidently, the advent of the Internet offered a new and effective means for making information about those opportunities more widely available. In 1993, the NSF Tokyo Office created a homepage which, in addition to offering detailed information about criteria and application procedures for NSF's Japan-related programs, also provides substantial information about research facilities in Japan, as well as practical information about living, traveling and working in the country. At a later stage, an option was added to the homepage yielding information about on-going US-Japan Cooperative Research and Joint Seminar projects. Thus by means of its homepage, the NSF/Tokyo Office was able to augment the way it exercised both its coordination/liaison and assistance responsibilities.

 

The NSF Tokyo Office homepage also provides a convenient vehicle for making available to a wider audience of Tokyo Report Memoranda (i.e., policy-oriented reports prepared by the Office), Special Scientific Reports prepared by visiting American scientists, engineers, and students, and Monthly S&T Articles prepared by the Office.

 

Responsibilities of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office in the 1990s.

 

With the creation and expansion throughout the decade of the Summer Programs for Graduate Students, the assistance responsibility of NSF's Tokyo Regional Office increased even more it had when the various fellowship programs were introduced in the late 1980s. Although NSF encouraged applicants to the summer programs to include specific information about potential Japanese host scientists or engineers in their applications, often the graduate students who applied in the early years of the program were unable to do much more than list institutions where they would like to conduct their research.  In those cases, the Office helped to identify and negotiate with appropriate Japanese scientists and engineers about their willingness to serve as hosts for successful applicants to the Summer Programs.  Additionally, the Office frequently assisted in locating appropriate housing for the students, participated in their orientation following arrival in Japan, and to some extent monitored students' progress throughout their seven week research experience. While the program has evolved considerably, the Office remains very engaged with NSF's Japanese partner agency, host institutions/researchers, and the U.S. graduate student participants.  The Office Director and staff try to visit as many of the American graduate students as possible during the weeks when they are working at their host institutions.

 

2000- Present

 

Millennium Dialogue Report

 

Two rather different events occurred during the final year of the 29^th Century.  In May 2000, the NSF Tokyo Office celebrated the 40^th aniversary of the Office.  Also in May 2000, a report entitled "US-Japan Dialogue on the role of Science and Technology in Society into the New Millennium" was transmitted to the President of the United States and the Japan's Monbusho Minister on the occasion of the meeting of the Joint High Level Committee, in Washington, DC. Such a report had been requested by US President Bill Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi following their meeting in Washington, DC, on May 4, 1999. It was produced by a joint committee of 16 scientists and engineers co-chaired on the US side by Norman Neureiter (co-chair of the Joint High Level Advisory Panel created under the 1988 Science and Technology Agreement and later Science Advisor to the Secretary of State starting in 2001) and on the Japanese side by Hiroo Imura (a member of the Council of Science and Technology Policy and a former president of the University of Kyoto). NSF's Japan Program provided a substantial portion of the funding for the travel of US members of the committee and for writing the report. For its part, the NSF Tokyo Office assisted in preparation of the report by providing assistance to the US co-chair as well as the other US members of the committee during their trips to Tokyo, and also performed liaison functions with the Japanese side during intervals between meetings.

 

Ad-Hoc Scientific Cooperation Network

 

In October 2000 the NSF Tokyo Office organized and hosted an event of considerable symbolic importance. In recognition of the growing importance of science and engineering throughout the East Asia/Pacific region and the fact that many scientific problems are regional in nature, the Director of NSF's Division of International Programs (INT)^[10] invited appropriate individuals from counterpart organizations in Beijing, Canberra, Taejon, Taipei, and Tokyo to a meeting hosted by NSF's Tokyo Regional Office to exchange information about their organizations and their plans for the future. Members of this so-called Ad Hoc Scientific Cooperation Network agreed to continue to exchange information and discuss opportunities for coordinating relevant aspects of their respective programs by e-mail, and to meet again after two years.

One concrete outcome of the October 2000 meeting was agreement to explore the feasibility of an Asia/Pacific Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) program. The ASI concept is modeled after the long-standing NATO Advanced Studies Institute program in which a total of 30 to 40 promising postdoctoral scientists in a specific field from participating countries spend approximately 10 days with senior scientists from those countries for programs of lectures, group discussions, and relevant field trips. The first Asia/Pacific ASI, on Advanced (Intelligent) Robotics, was hosted by JSPS in Tokyo in July 2001, with NSF and the other organizations that had participated in the October 2000 meeting of the Ad Hoc Network sending postdocs as well as senior scientists as participants. A second Asia/Pacific ASI, on Bioinformatics ("The Genome-Phenome Link"), was hosted by the Australian Research Council in October 2002. In July 2004 (after postponement due to the SARS outbreak in East Asia), the third ASI, on Functional Materials, was hosted by JSPS in Miyagi-Zao.

 

Public Understanding of Science and Research

 

Beginning in 2000, joint interest in the public understanding of science and research brought together the Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in sponsoring a series of exchange visits and workshops to engage experts in the academic, government and public service (museum and informal education, and scientific and educational broadcasting, for example) sectors on this topic.   Exchange activities in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 laid the groundwork for establishing cooperative networks supporting the development and sharing of new techniques and materials to promote public understanding.

 

AWARE Programs.

 

Beginning in 2000, the National Science Foundation's Division of the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) announced that it would internationalize four existing NSF programs by providing supplementary support to permit grantees to gain working experiences in East Asia. These four internationalized programs, Global Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (Global GK-12), International Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeships Program (International IGERT), International Research Experience for Undergraduates (International REU), and the International Center-to-Center Program are collectively designated as the AWARE (American Workforce and Research and Education) Programs. Establishment of the AWARE programs has provided the NSF Tokyo Regional Office with additional opportunities to assist American researchers and students in Japan. During 2001, several AWARE grantees came to Japan and visited the NSF Tokyo Regional Office to discuss their objectives. In particular, two sets of American professors came to Japan that year to explore possibilities of bringing groups of undergraduates to the country for four to six weeks of research experience in cooperation with Japanese host scientists. The first such REU program in Japan involving a group of eight American undergraduate engineers working in the field of advanced civil engineering technologies took place during June-July 2002, hosted by the Civil Engineering Department of Tokyo University. Beginning in fall 2003, an international REU in chemical engineering began operation at Sophia University (Tokyo) and at Osaka University. The NSF Tokyo Office staff assisted American organizers and Japanese hosts in orientation programs, and in monitoring the progress of these students during their time in Japan.

 

PIRE (Partnerships for International Research and Education) Program

 

Beginning in 2005, NSF’s OISE started PIRE program that enables U.S. institutions to develop long-term, collaborative research and education programs with international partners.  Excellent, focused science and engineering research projects that are based on integrated research and education efforts are selected with substantive intellectual contributions from international collaborators who bring unique capabilities to the research activity.   Of the awards made in 2005, two had counterpart Japanese institutions.   One of them was given to Rice University with Tokyo Institute of Technology as a primary international partner for research on nanotechnology.  Another was given to University of Alaska-Fairbanks with the University of Tokyo as a primary international partner for research in volcanology.  The former sends about a dozen undergraduate students to Japanese institutions for a few months during the summer.   In 2007 Tokyo Office Director was invited to the orientation session to give a talk about NSF’s international programs and a brief guidance for science system in Japan.   The Tokyo Office staff assisted American PIs and their Japanese partners by providing information about NSF, PIRE, and other support as needed. The NSF Tokyo Office also facilitated a meeting between the PI at Rice University and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)’s International Division staff to inform the JSPS staff about the PIRE program.    Following the meeting, JSPS launched a new program, the JSPS International Training Program, modeled after PIRE.

 

NSF Tokyo Office Homepage as a Regional Resource.

 

During the years since it was created in 1993, the information accessible from the NSF Tokyo Office homepage has expanded considerably so that by the end of the decade it included, for example: information about research and education opportunities in Japan; extensive listings of Japanese university, industry, and government research facilities; a directory of Japanese researchers willing to consider hosting American researchers; and a good deal of general information about Japan. Additionally, the homepage has continued to serve as a useful vehicle for making Tokyo Report Memoranda and Special Scientific Reports widely available. In 2001, recognizing NSF's growing links with scientific and educational institutions throughout the East Asia/Pacific region, the NSF Tokyo Office homepage was redesigned so that it could serve as a regional resource. Information about opportunities throughout East Asia and the Pacific can now be accessed from the homepage, together with listings of East Asia and Pacific research facilities and (where they exist) links to their relevant home pages. At the same time, a new series of East Asia Report Memoranda, comparable to the Tokyo Report Memoranda, was initiated and these reports made accessible through the redesigned homepage. Finally, in recognition of the importance of the AWARE programs to NSF's objective of developing "a diverse, internationally competitive and globally-engaged US workforce of scientists, engineers and well-prepared citizens," a new feature where reports by AWARE grantees are posted and links to existing AWARE homepages was added to the homepage.

 

Cooperation under Framework Initiative of Safe and Secure Society (FIS3)

 

The 1st Safe and Secure Society Workshop was held in Tokyo on February 12-13, 2004. From this broad-ranging and comprehensive first Workshop eventually emerged an agreement between NSF and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) for future cooperation in research on critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP).    A follow-up workshop on CIIP was held in Washington, D.C. on September 28-29, 2004 with support from NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, MEXT and JST.  It was followed by another CIIP workshop in Tokyo in 2005.  Under the auspices of CIIP, a total of 12 US-Japan collaborative projects were supported between 2005-2007.

 

In 2007 NSF and JST held a joint workshop on Sensor Technologies.   Based on the discussion at the workshop, an NSF-JST joint program on sensor technologies was launched as part of the FIS3 cooperative activities. In July 2007, JST and NSF announced a program to support US-Japan collaborative research projects in a broad area of sensor technologies.

 

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP)

 

In the late 1990s, NSF announced that since the JOIDES Resolution (the drillship that provides the platform for the ODP) would complete all of the useful scientific drilling expeditions of which it is capable by the end of 2003, the program would be terminated at that time. Subsequently, NSF requested an expert panel to recommend a detailed scientific agenda for a possible follow-on ocean drilling program. After this panel had submitted its report, NSF announced that it would seek approval to convert another commercial oil exploration vessel into an advanced scientific drillship based on the panel's specifications.

 

Approximately two years earlier, the Science and Technology Agency of Japan (STA) had announced its intention to request funding from the Ministry of Finance to construct its own state-of-the art drillship using advanced riser technology. This request was approved in 1999. During that same year, NSF and STA began a series of negotiations aimed at a new, multilateral Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) to begin in 2004 based on two drillships: one American, one Japanese.  At a signing ceremony in Tokyo on April 22, 2003, a Memorandum outlining cooperation in ocean drilling between NSF and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; Monbukagakusho (MEXT) was inked by then-NSF Director Rita Colwell and MEXT Minister Atsuko Toyama.  On October 1, 2003, marked by a ceremony in Tokyo, IODP was officially started.  Currently, 21 countries participate in the IODP, including the U.S. (NSF), Japan (MEXT), a European consortium (European Consortium for Ocean Drilling, ECORD), China (Ministry of Science and Technology), and Korea (The Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources).  The Japanese riser vessel Chikyu (meaning “Earth”) was completed in 2005, and has begun its scientific drilling in September 2007.  The JOIDES Resolution continues its service as the non-riser vessel and its renovation is expected to be completed in May 2008.  These two ships will be joined by mission-specific platforms supported by ECORD.  NSF and MEXT hold coordinating meetings to discuss IODP about 6 times a year either in the U.S. or Japan.  When it is held in Japan, the Tokyo Office assists NSF program staff with logistics and follow-on activities.   Since 2004, MEXT has created a liaison post at NSF/GEO and a MEXT staff is assigned to the position on a full-time basis.

 

NEES-E-Defense Program

 

On September 11, 2005, Dr. Arden Bement, Director, NSF, signed a “Memorandum Concerning Cooperation in the Area of Disaster Prevention Research” with Mr. Tetsuhisa Shirakawa, Deputy Minister, MEXT, which enabled Japanese and American researchers to share access to new experimental facilities: the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) – a group of 15 U.S. experimental facilities linked through advanced communication networks in the US; and  the world’s largest shake table, the 3-D Full-Scale Earthquake Testing Facility, located in Miki City, near Kobe, Japan.  NSF and NIED (National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention) periodically meet to discuss coordination and collaboration between the two communities.

 

NSF-MEXT Cooperation in Nanotechnology

 

In 2002, NSF (ENG) and MEXT (Nanotechnology Center) launched a program to support annually two symposia (after 2005 one symposium) and young researcher exchanges between U.S. and Japan, based on the recognition that Nanoscience and Nanotechnology is important areas of research investment with potentially widespread future implications for our societies in many disciplines including electronics, photonics, advanced materials and medicine.   As of December 2007 seven symposia have been held either in the U.S. or Japan, and five exchanges of young researchers have taken place.  The fields covered by the symposia and exchange programs vary from Therapy & Diagnosis, Nano-bio, Nano-photonics, Carbon Nanotubes, to Fuel Cell.  NSF and MEXT convened in October 2007 and agreed to focus the effort on the researcher exchange and terminate the annual symposium.

 

Materials World Net

 

Since 2002, NSF/MPS/DMR has worked with the NSF Tokyo office to identify Japanese funding agencies to partner with in establishing the “Materials Word Net.”   In 2005, JSPS agreed to cooperate with the efforts by establishing a special e-mail address that was designated to receive inquiries about the program.  During the DMR’s visit to Japan in October 2007,  JSPS, JST and NEDO (New Energy and  IndustrialTechnology Development Organization) officially signed on as partner agencies and their names will be listed as such in the NSF’s program announcement for the “Materials World Net” program.

 

Coda

 

For 23 years save for two short-term exceptions, the Tokyo Regional Office^[11] was NSF's sole overseas office. Then in 1983 NSF established a second overseas office in the American Embassy in Paris to represent its interests in Europe.  Then, in May 2006, NSF officially opened its third overseas office in Beijing to serve the growing number of U.S. scientists and engineers who are involved in cooperative projects with China as increasing numbers of American scientists, engineers and educators who look to NSF for support have come to recognize the important international aspects of their pursuits.   If and when NSF decides to open additional overseas offices, the 40 plus years of experience of the National Science Foundation's Tokyo Regional Office could well be relevant to such additional overseas offices.

 

 

Acknowledgements

 

Much of the information in the first, August 2002 version of this document is based on a presentation prepared by Masanobu Miyahara during the fall of 1999 at the request of the National Science Board. Mr. Miyahara, who served as Senior Science Associate in the NSF Tokyo Regional Office from 1961 until his retirement in January 2000, also made useful critical comments on an earlier draft of this document, as did Alexander DeAngelis, Charles Owens, and Larry Weber, all of whom headed the office during critical years. Information about the Takeshita and Center for Global Partnerships was taken largely from a report prepared by Kazuko Shinohara of the NSF Tokyo Regional Office, who also provided a good deal of the data that appears in Appendix II. Thanks are due to all these individuals for pointing out errors in the text and making suggestions for improving its readability. Akiko Chiba of the Tokyo Regional Office provided steady editorial management of the document through update and revision. The authors of the August 2002 version and subsequent additions, however, assume full responsibility for any errors, distortions, or misrepresentations that may remain. Since this document is posted on the NSF Tokyo Office homepage, it has been updated since August 2002 and will continue to be updated as new developments take place. The current update is a joint effort by the author and the NSF Tokyo staff, Kazuko Shinohara and Akiko Chiba. Because it continues as a work in progress, suggestions for further modifications will be considered and, if adopted, gratefully acknowledged