In December 2014, the Tokyo Foundation hosted a meeting for administrators of the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff) on the theme of “Challenges and Opportunities in an Interconnected World.” The approximately 120 participants of the highly fruitful meeting not only learned about recently introduced programs, including the option of switching to a new financial scheme, but also strengthened their ties with the Sylff community, including over 10 invited Sylff fellows who have emerged as leaders embodying the Sylff ideal.

This report of the Sylff Administrators Meeting has been prepared by the Tokyo Foundation to promote a better understanding of the mission of the Sylff program and its decentralized focus, facilitate interuniversity dialogue and collaboration, and, most importantly, to maintain and build on the momentum generated by the meeting to enrich the Sylff experience and elevate the value of a Sylff fellowship.

The Tokyo Foundation expresses its deepest gratitude to all representatives of Sylff institutions who took the time to attend the meeting in Tokyo and for their contributions and friendship during the meeting. We hope you will enjoy reading this report.

Please click on the image to jump to the Administrators Meetings page, where you can download the report and view photos of the meeting.

The articles uploaded on the Sylff website over the past 15 months have been complied into the June 2015 edition of Voices from the Sylff Community. The book contains 14 articles on such topics as land reform, information systems, economic development, sociolinguistics, youth leadership, and musical education, representing the diverse and global nature of the Sylff community. The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to have received many contributions from fellows around the world over the past year.

One feature of Voices 2015 is a section on articles related to SRA and SLI. More than two years have passed since Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) was re-launched in 2013 to support the social action initiatives of fellows, and it is now bearing fruit, as demonstrated by the articles contained herein—including those written by other Sylff fellows who observed or attended the projects. The articles in the SRA section showcase the diversity of the research being conducted by fellows.

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sylff program at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Sylff Administrators Meeting held in Tokyo in December 2014 are introduced with photos of participants. There are also two pages of photos at the back of the booklet featuring the many outstanding fellows whom members of the Tokyo Foundation had the pleasure of meeting in 2014.

The booklet can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

We Want to Hear Your “Voice”

We’re always eager to receive YOUR contributions to the Sylff site. Reports of your academic or social action achievements should be submitted to the Tokyo Foundation at leadership [a] tkfd.or.jp (replace [a] with @).

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Voices from the Sylff Community
June 2015

CONTENTS

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.