Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Sona Andrews, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Dean of Graduate Studies Margaret Everett, and other faculty members of Portland State University paid a courtesy call on the Tokyo Foundation on March 8, 2016.

The delegation from Portland State University—from far right, Margaret Everett, Sona Andrews, Stephen Percy, and Masami Nishishiba—meet with members of the Tokyo Foundation.

Professor Everett is the chairperson of the Sylff steering committee at PSU, which shares its endowment with the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. For more than a decade, the PSU has also been hosting an annual weeklong training program in citizen-based urban development as part of the Tokyo Foundation’s “Weekend School” for Municipal Officers—a leadership development program for mid-career municipal officers in Japan.

Other visitors from PSU included Professor Stephen Percy, dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs, and Professor Masami Nishishiba, associate professor of public administration and associate director of the Center for Public Service in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government. Professor Nishishiba is the coordinator of the municipal officers program in Portland and has made an invaluable contribution to enriching the experience of the Japanese participants.

Members of the PSU met with Tokyo Foundation President Masahiro Akiyama, Executive Directors Sanae Oda and Akiko Imai, Director for Public Communications Kaoru Matsushita, and three program officers for leadership development: Tomoko Yamada, Akiko Inagaki, and Aya Oyamada.

The visitors brought news of the recently established School of Public Health at PSU, highlighting the growing importance of public health issues both globally and in the local community. Sharing updates on a variety of recent initiatives, members of PSU and the Foundation pledged to deepen their collaboration in the future.

Call for Applications for FY2016

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) ’s call for applications for fiscal 2016 (April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017). The deadline for the first selection round is June 28 (for those planning research abroad after July 28) and for the second selection is January 9, 2017 (for those planning research abroad after February 6).

Click here for details of the announcement.

SRA supports current or past Sylff fellowship recipients to conduct academic research related to their doctoral dissertation in a foreign country. It provides the grant of up to US$5,000 each to successful applicants. We hope you will be able to become one of them.

We look forward to receiving your applications!

Access to Sylff website and Tokyo Foundation website (both English and Japanese) will be temporarily unavailable from 10 pm to 11 pm on Friday, April 15 (Japan Standard Time), while our web server is being upgraded to enhance access speed. We apologize for the inconvenience.

SRA Awardees for Fiscal 2015, Second Round

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce the 12 recipients of SRA awards in the second screening round for fiscal 2015. We received a large number of applications from fellows around the world, and the selection process was very competitive. All applications were carefully screened for eligibility, the feasibility of the proposal, and the relevance of the proposed research to the applicant’s academic pursuits. Congratulations to the winning applicants! We send you our best wishes and hope that the findings of your research abroad will further enrich and enhance your dissertation. The name of the awardees and their home and the host institutions can be viewed here.

Six outstanding students at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens were awarded Sylff fellowships under the New Sylff Fellowship Program in February 2016 (see details of the new program ). Athens was the second university to successfully switch to the new scheme.

Sylff fellows, from left to right: Maria Kyritsi, Anna Ventouratou, Nikolaos Galanopoulos, Vasiliki Gkeka, Evangelia Chaldaiaki, and Emilia Savva.

The Sylff program at Athens has been energized under the new financial scheme. The six latest fellows not only have excellent academic credentials but have also demonstrated strong leadership in their research and social activities, both locally and internationally. The Tokyo Foundation is visiting the university in April, and we are looking forward to learning more about their activities.

We wish them a great success in their graduate studies and their careers.

From left to right: Despina Karvela (Sylff program executive), Loukas Spanos (SSC member and Sylff alumnus), Professor Costas Dimitracopoulos (SSC member), Maria Kyritsi (Sylff fellow), Vasiliki Gkeka (Sylff fellow), Anna Ventouratou (Sylff fellow), Vice Rector Konstantinos Buraselis (SSC Chairman), Emilia Savva (Sylff fellow), Professor Andreas Helmis (SSC member), Evangelia Chaldaiaki (Sylff fellow), Professor Stavros Thomadakis (SSC member), and Nikolaos Galanopoulos (Sylff fellow).

From left to right, Takashi Suzuki, Sanae Oda, Andrezej Mania, Dorota Maciejowska, and Yoko Kaburagi.

On February 1, 2016, members of the Sylff steering committee at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, visited the Tokyo Foundation during their trip to Japan.

Professor Habil Andrezej Mania, vice rector for educational affairs and chairperson of the Jagiellonian Sylff steering committee, and Ms. Dorota Maciejowska, head of the university’s international relations, shared stories of outstanding JU fellows who have gone on to become leaders in various fields through the skills and knowledge acquired during their Sylff fellowship years.

The Jagiellonian University joined the Sylff community in 1992 and has since successfully supported over 250 fellows. Many of them now assume important positions in academia and government, including international organizations, and have become role models for younger fellows.

The Sylff program at the university is very prestigious, the visitors noted, because it is the only fellowship that attaches great importance to leadership. The Jagiellonian Sylff steering committee looks for high-level language skills and leadership qualities in assessing candidates through application documents and interviews.

The meticulous selection process is very time-consuming, Professor Mania and Ms. Maciejowska noted, but Sylff steering committee members are committed to the task because they are eager to nurture future leaders through the Sylff program.

Congratulations to the Jagiellonian Sylff steering committee on its efforts to elevate the quality and status of the Sylff program thus far, and we look forward to further success in the future.

Wishing You Peace and Joy in the New Year!

(Back row, from left) Tomoko Yamada, Takashi Suzuki (Director), Kaoru Matsushita (Director), Akiko Inagaki; (middle row) Yoko Kaburagi, Sanae Oda (Executive Director), Masahiro Akiyama (President), Akiko Imai (Executive Director), Yukiko Otani;(seated) Keita Sugai, Aya Oyamada, Yumi Arai, Mari Suzuki (Director), Mana Sakamoto

NEW SYLFF FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

We are pleased to announce that this past October, fellowships were given to five students at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), the under the new Sylff Fellowship Program. The program is being offered jointly by The Nippon Foundation and Tokyo Foundation to all schools in the Sylff program...(more...)

SYLFF SUPPORT PROGRAMS

Three fellows were selected as Sylff Leadership Initiatives recipients in 2015 so far, and their reports can be read here. In addition, 28 Sylff Research Abroad grants were awarded. The reports of SRA awardees on the Sylff website are classified by fiscal year-round number. We look forward to receiving many more applications in 2016.

SYLFF WORLDWIDE

We're very happy to share news of outstanding achievements by Sylff fellows around the world, including:

February 24
Conductor Holly Mathieson, a Sylff fellow from New Zealand, organized a concert on March 18, 2015, in Berlin, Germany, to launch Horizont Musik-Kollektiv, an organization to celebrate the works...(more...)

June 1
At the Institute of Political Education in Italy, Sylff fellowships are granted through the “Idea-Action Research Program” to encourage research projects in the social sciences and...(more...)

September 5
Marisa Hamamoto, a 2007 Sylff fellowship recipient at Keio University, has launched Infinite Flow, America’s first professional wheelchair ballroom dance company. It is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that...(more...)

SYLFF@TOKYO

We welcomed many current and graduated fellows, and the comittee chairman to the Tokyo Foundation in 2015.

January 29
Violinist Johannes Fleischmann, a 2013 Sylff fellowship recipient at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, made a tour of venues around Japan in October 2014,including a special lunchtime...(more...)

February 24, September 8
Lindsey Lim, who received a Sylff fellowship in 2014 at Columbia University, visited the Tokyo Foundation in January 6 and June 4, 2015, to give presentations...(more for article on Feb. 24...) (more for article on Sep. 8...)

May 25
Numtip Smerchuar, a 2006 Sylff fellowship recipient at Chiang Mai University, visited the Tokyo Foundation on May 11, 2015. While working as a lecturer in the School of Political and Social Science...(more...)

June 26
Professor Ulrike Schaede, chairperson of the Sylff program at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (formerly the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies), University of California,...(more...)

December 18
On December 4, 2015, Ngo Hong Anh Thu, a 2014 Sylff fellowship recipient at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, visited the Tokyo Foundation and gave a presentation on her doctoral research....(more...)