Four new Sylf fellows, from left to right, Vincenzo Todaro, Francesco Vigneri, Walter Nania, and Elio Tozzi.

At the Institute of Political Education “Pedro Arrupe” in Italy, Sylff fellowships are granted through the “Idea-Action Research Program” to encourage research projects in the social sciences and humanities that address topics from a strictly scientific point of view while, at the same time, providing mechanisms and operational instruments to promote their practical implementation.

The results of the program’s scientific research are published on the “Observatory on Migrations” website, which was developed in 2013 as an outgrowth of research conducted by two Sylff fellows.

An award ceremony was held on April 20, 2015, for the Institute’s four Sylff fellows for the 2015–16 academic year: Walter Nania, Vincenzo Todaro, Elio Tozzi, and Francesco Vigneri.

Walter Nania is a cultural anthropologist who has also worked professionally as a freelance journalist and producer of visual documentaries. He will investigate the phenomenon of school dropouts among immigrant youths in Palermo, Italy.

Vincenzo Todaro, a PhD holder majoring in urban and regional planning, will collaborate with the University of Palermo, developing an action-research plan at Arrupe on the phenomenon of the concentration and dispersion of immigrants in Sicily.

Elio Tozzi, after receiving a degree in international relations and policy from the University of Naples, gained an internship at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants in Brussels. His project at Arrupe will study the reception system of African immigrants in Sicily.

Sylff Steering Committee President Massimo Massaro, standing.

Francesco Vigneri is a PhD candidate who studied intercultural communication and national and European migration policies at the University of Rome and the École Doctorale des Sciences Humaines et Sociales of Strasbourg University. He will study the issue of mixed cooperatives (Italian-foreign) in Sicily.

On May 8, 2015, a Sylff orientation and presentation meeting was held. Massimo Massaro, president of Sylff Steering Committee at the Arrupe Institute, informed the four Sylff fellows of the objectives of the Sylff program and the roles of the Tokyo Foundation, describing the additional opportunities offered through such support programs as SRA and SLI. (Article written by Massimo Massaro)

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 at the University of Phayao in Thailand, she was awarded a Thai government scholarship to pursue doctoral studies. She is currently enrolled in a PhD program at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, in Japan.

Numtip Smerchuar, second from left, during her visit to the Tokyo Foundation.

The aims of her research are to clarify the changes in the Thai government’s security policy for migrants from border States in the context of the prevailing sociopolitical environment since the end of World War II, analyze the process leading up to each policy change, and propose an appropriate immigration policymaking model for the country.

Chiang Mai, where she earned her master’s degree, is located in northern Thailand and is geographically close to southern China. The presence of many Chinese immigrants in the city, where they have settled down over the years, prompted her to study the Thai government’s immigration policy in greater detail.

Today’s migrants mainly come from other Southeast Asian countries, notably Myanmar and Cambodia. The influx of people from across the border has become a national issue, as the newcomers compete for jobs with the local population. The phenomenon also has implications for census registration, with unregistered migrants not being able to send their children to school, particularly at the tertiary level.

Numtip chose to pursue this issue in her doctoral research out of a wish to utilize the findings not only to positively affect the Thai government’s immigration policy but also to help improve the migrants’ social conditions by enhancing their employment, education, and healthcare opportunities.

The Tokyo Foundation wishes her great success in her research and career pursuits.

Call for Application FY2015

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) ’s call for applications for fiscal 2015 (April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016). The deadline for the first selection round is June 30 (for those planning research abroad after August 18).

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!

2014-2 Awardees

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce the 17 recipients of SRA awards in the second round of fiscal 2014 (April 2014 to March 2015).

As in the past round, we received high number of applications from around the world and it was a competitive selection.

The applications were carefully screened for eligibility, the feasibility of the proposal, and the relevance of the proposed research to the applicant’s current academic pursuits.

Congratulations to the winning applicants, and many wishes that the opportunity for research abroad turns out to be a fruitful one.

The names of the awardees and their home and the host institutions can be viewed here.

SYLFF ADMINISTRATORS MEETING 2014

Major topics discussed at this quadrennial meeting for Sylff administrators included a new financial scheme, current and future additional support programs for fellows, and emerging issues in higher education. There were also sessions devoted to dialogue on key global issues with Tokyo Foundation research fellows. Participants from over 60 member universities worldwide attended, including more than 15 Sylff fellows—some of whom have become members of their alma maters’ Sylff Steering Committees—who shared their experiences and insights. The meeting was a great opportunity to strengthen the Sylff network and explore ways to further enrich the Sylff program.

SYLFF SUPPORT PROGRAMS

Four fellows were selected as SLI recipients in 2014, and their reports can be read here. In addition, 30 Sylff Research Abroad grants were awarded. The reports of SRA awardees on the Sylff website are classified by fiscal year. We look forward to receiving many more applications in 2015! Also in 2015, a “Sylff Fellows Forum for Global Dialogue” will be held at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India. Please keep an eye on announcements from us for details.

SYLFF WORLDWIDE

We’re very happy to share news of outstanding achievements by Sylff fellows around the world.

February 3

Conductor and pianist Jimmy Chiang was appointed resident conductor of the famed Vienna Boys’ Choir. Chiang received a Sylff fellowship in 2005 while attending the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he studied orchestral conducting, chorus conducting, and piano. From late April to mid-June, he was on an extensive tour of Japan, performing at many of the most prestigious concert halls in the country, including Suntory Hall and Tokyo Opera City.

February 14

“Sustaining Life during the Early Stages of Disaster Relief with a Frugal Information System: Learning from the Great East Japan Earthquake,” co-authored by Keio University Sylff fellow Mihoko Sakurai, was published in the January 2014 edition of IEEE Communications Magazine. The paper, based on field research into the ICT systems of local governments, points to the need for municipal governments to build disaster-resilient communication systems. Power outages and the resultant loss of communication and processing capability severely constrained recovery efforts in many municipalities in the wake of March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

February 20

Divna Trickovic, a 2002 fellow at the University of Belgrade, has published the first textbook on kanji (Sino-Japanese characters) ever written in Serbian. She is now an assistant professor in Japanese language and literature at her alma mater. The textbook, published in July 2013, introduces each character in innovative ways, analyzing kanji in ways that Serbians can easily visualize and remember. It has captured the hearts of Japanese learners in Serbia and is being adopted as an official textbook for high school students choosing to learn Japanese as an elective.

April 3

Masaaki Higashijima, a 2008 Sylff fellow at Waseda University, was the recipient of the 2014 Annual International IDEA/Electoral Integrity Project Award for Best Graduate Student Paper on Electoral Integrity. The award is sponsored by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the Electoral Integrity Project of Harvard University and the University of Sydney. The winner was selected on the basis of potential significance to aspects of the election cycle.

June 18

The University of Latvia organized a conference featuring nine Sylff fellows on the topic of “World in Change: From Consumption to Sustainability, from Competition to Collaboration, from Hierarchy to Networks, from Being Good to Doing Good.” The university joined the Sylff community in 2002. The opening ceremony featured remarks by Rector Marcis Auzins; Professor Ina Druviete, the former Latvian minister of education and science; Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa, who described his work towards the eradication of leprosy; and Tokyo Foundation Director for Leadership Development Takashi Suzuki.

July 24

Many universities held fellowship presentation ceremonies in 2014. Members of the Tokyo Foundation attended one at Waseda University, where two graduate students were awarded Sylff fellowships during a ceremony at an administrative building named after university founder Shigenobu Okuma. The recipients for the 2014 academic year are Aya Kudo, who is in the fourth year of a doctoral program at the Graduate School of Political Science, and Nguyen Thi Phuong Thanh, a first-year doctoral student at the Graduate School of Commerce. We extend our warmest welcome to all new fellows around the world!

SYLFF@TOKYO

We welcomed many current and graduated fellows to the Tokyo Foundation in 2014.

May 29

Roger Cliff, a Sylff fellowship recipient in 1991 at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University, visited the Tokyo Foundation on April 4 to participate in a conference on East Asian security. The day-long workshop on extended deterrence in East Asia, organized by the Tokyo Foundation and the Atlantic Council, was attended by security experts from Japan, the United States, and South Korea. Cliff is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, where he is engaged in the Center’s Asia Security Initiative as a specialist on East Asian security issues.

June 26

Paulo Ravecca, who received a Sylff fellowship while at York University and was awarded an SRA grant in 2011, visited the Tokyo Foundation while in Japan on an invitation from the Embassy of Ecuador. Ravecca is currently enrolled in a PhD program at York University and is writing his dissertation on the “politics of political science” in Chile and Uruguay, showing that the changes in political science in these Latin American countries are a product of power relations at different levels.

October 10

Jonathan Shalfi, who received a Sylff fellowship in 2013 and 2014 while attending the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, visited the Tokyo Foundation to discuss Japan’s energy policy with Foundation policy experts. He was attending the University of Tokyo at the time as an exchange student to study Japan’s energy security, particularly the potential steps Japan can take to ensure safe fuel shipments from abroad. Three Foundation research fellows explained the policymaking challenges facing Japan in the field of energy policy and national security.

November 10

Madhuchanda Ghosh, a Sylff fellow from Jadavpur University (2004) and assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Presidency University in Kolkata, India, visited the Tokyo Foundation and met with members of the Foundation staff, including Executive Director Sanae Oda. Ghosh is a preeminent scholar of Japanese studies and was invited by the Japan Foundation to conduct research at the Graduate School of Law and Politics of Rikkyo University in Tokyo. She wrote an article that was published in the Japan Times, a leading English paper in Japan, just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan in September.

November 19

Ahmad Adriansyah, who received a Sylff fellowship from the University of Indonesia in 2002, visited the Tokyo Foundation while in Japan to attend the Ninth International Conference on Business and Management Research, hosted by the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, where he made a presentation on the Indonesian banking industry. This was his first visit to Japan, and he said he had a strong desire to visit the Tokyo Foundation to convey his gratitude for the Sylff program. “I wanted to say thank you,” he said, “not only because the Sylff fellowship supported my PhD study but it also opened up opportunities to receive additional awards. It also gave me the opportunity to build a global network with other fellows through my participation in the Chiang Mai Regional Forum in 2003.”

Wishing You Peace and Joy in the New Year!

(on the back row from left to right) Tetsuya, Yoichi, Keita, Eriko, Tomoko
(on the middle row) Yoko, Mari Suzuki(Director), Yumi, Akiko
(on the front row) Akiko Imai(Executive Director), Masahiro Akiyama(President), Sanae Oda(Executive Director), Takashi Suzuki(Director)

Adriansyah, center, with program officers at the Tokyo Foundation

Dr. Ahmad Adriansyah, who received a Sylff fellowship from the University of Indonesia in 2002, visited the Tokyo Foundation on October 28, 2014.

He was in Japan to attend the Ninth International Conference on Business and Management Research, hosted by the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, where he made a presentation on the Indonesian banking industry. This was his first visit to Japan, and he had a strong desire to visit the Tokyo Foundation, he said, to convey his gratitude for the Sylff program.

“I wanted to say thank you,” he said, “not only because the Sylff fellowship supported my PhD study but it also opened up opportunities to receive additional awards, including the prestigious Indonesian government scholarship for PhD research. It also gave me the opportunity to build a global network with other fellows through my participation in the Chiang Mai Regional Forum in 2003.”

He has worked at his alma mater as an internal auditor and was recently offered a tenured teaching position at the Indonesia Banking School, a reputed college of economics owned by the central bank of Indonesia.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Adriansyah is interested in contributing to society. He was inspired by his visit to Omron Kyoto Taiyo, a factory in Kyoto where most of the workers are disabled. He is hoping to engage with a social business that will offer jobs to elderly people in Indonesia, who are rarely given an opportunity to work even if they wish to do so.

The Tokyo Foundation wishes him continued success with his budding career.

From left to right, Takaaki Asano, Sanae Oda, Madhuchanda Ghosh, Mami Ino, Mari Suzuki, and Akiko Inagaki.

Madhuchanda Ghosh, a Sylff fellow from Jadavpur University (2004) and assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Presidency University in Kolkata, India, visited the Tokyo Foundation on July 16 and met with members of the Foundation staff, including Executive Director Sanae Oda.

Ghosh is recognized as a preeminent scholar of Japanese studies by the Japan Foundation and was invited to conduct research as a post-doctoral fellow in Tokyo at the Graduate School of Law and Politics, Rikkyo University, for three months.

She is a specialist in Japan-India relations. At the Tokyo Foundation, she met with Research Fellow Takaaki Asano and exchanged opinions on political issues in both India and Japan, as well as on the history and current state of Japan-India relations. During her previous stay in Japan in 2011, she interviewed several Japanese lawmakers, including Shinzo Abe, the prime minister since December 2012, who was then a member of the opposition.

She wrote an article that was published in the Japan Times, a leading English paper in Japan, just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan in September. Excerpts from the article, entitled “Modi’s Focus on the India-Japan Relationship,” are as follows (from the Japan Times Online):

In 2011, Abe opined that the two states would gain significantly from economic complementarities such as India’s growing market of more than 1.2 billion people and Japan’s search for new markets, Japan’s strength in hardware and India’s in software, and India’s huge infrastructural and energy needs and Japan’s technological expertise.

India can offer Japan, the world’s largest pool of skilled manpower. Abe also views that the pattern of relations among the U.S., Japan and India as of crucial importance in the context of the emerging security architecture in Asia.

Given Abe’s strong admiration for India, his friendly ties with India’s new premier and his urge to bolster the India-Japan strategic and global partnership, Modi’s forthcoming visit is likely to bring about a major transformation in India-Japan relations in the changing complex Asian geopolitical and geo-economic scenario.