ESF signs new cooperation agreement with the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS)

The European Science Foundation has signed a new extended Memorandum of Understanding with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). The document was formally signed by Professor Bertil Andersson, Chief Executive of the Foundation, and Professor Motoyuki Ono, President of JSPS.

The Memorandum provides for the close cooperation between both organisations for the organisation of ‘Frontier Science Meeting Series for Young Researchers’, which bring about 80 young researchers from both Europe and Japan together with more senior scientists to debate and exchange views on key topics at the cutting edge of research. These conferences, led by eminent researchers from Europe and Japan, normally take place each year, alternately in Europe and Japan.

The new agreement provides for Follow-up Workshops to be held about 2 to 3 years after each conference to allow for the subject to be explored further in the light of new advances. Participation in the Follow-up Workshops is principally by young researchers who took part in the first conference and who can demonstrate significant progress in their research and who have, ideally, developed collaborative projects with their colleagues from the partner region/country.

The first conference, at which the first Memorandum was signed, was held at San Feliu de Guixols, Spain, in October 2003 on the topic of ‘Functional Genomics: From the bench to Bioinformatics’ and the Follow up Workshop was held in Kanagawa, Japan, in March 2006. The second conference in 2005, also held in Kanagawa, addressed the topic of. ‘Quantum Information and Quantum Physics’. In June 2006, the third meeting in the series will be held in Nynäshamn, Sweden, on the topic of ‘Climate Change’. Plans are now in hand for conferences to be held in Japan in 2007 on ‘Robotics’ and in Europe in 2008 on the topic of ‘Social cognitive neuroscience’.