In 2007, at a time when the future of many Japan-related university courses was in doubt due to funding constraints, the Sasakawa Lectureship Programme for Japanese Studies was launched. It was a joint initiative under which The Nippon Foundation awarded the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation (GBSF) an unprecedented £2.5 million towards the creation of 13 full-time lectureships at 12 universities across the UK. One of the driving forces behind the Programme’s conception was Mr Stephen McEnally, Chief Executive of GBSF. His objective in mounting the Programme was to help build a solid foundation for Japanese Studies in the UK through the provision of funding for a full five years, after which the posts were expected to be maintained by the universities.

The Programme has been a tremendous success. Not only has it sustained already existing fields of study and research, but it has helped establish new ones. Indeed, as many as 11 of the 13 Sasakawa lectureships are set to continue.

The establishment, for example, of the Sasakawa Lectureship in Japanese Studies at Cardiff University’s Japanese Studies Centre has saved the Centre from possible closure and ensured that Japanese can still be studied in Wales. Meanwhile, the success of the lectureship at Newcastle University has been largely due to the fact that it is in a history department, unlike most of the other lectureships, which are in Japanese Studies or Area Studies departments. As Professor Tim Kirk, Head of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology there, comments: “Students who were otherwise highly unlikely to study Japan during their university degrees are now able to specialise in Japanese history – something that would have been unimaginable without the Sasakawa grant.”

On 23 January the Embassy co-hosted with The Nippon Foundation and GBSF a reception to celebrate the Programme’s success. Both Mr Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, and the Earl of St Andrews, Chairman of GBSF, were present. In his remarks, Ambassador Hayashi paid tribute to both foundations for their generosity and spoke in glowing terms about the success of the Programme: “It is hard to think of another programme related to Japanese Studies in this country which has achieved its aims in such a spectacular fashion.” Noting the excellent state of Japan-UK relations, he emphasised the importance of underpinning our ties through nurturing in British people a deeper understanding of Japan – something to which the Lectureship Programme had made a tremendous contribution.

The Earl of St Andrews

Mr Sasakawa expressed his pleasure at the Programme’s considerable achievements, thanking the lecturers for their efforts and praising the universities for their vision and commitment. He delighted the audience by announcing that the two foundations were exploring ideas for a further programme to support Japanese Studies in the UK, one possibility being the establishment of a postgraduate studentship programme. Moreover, he stressed The Nippon Foundation’s determination to make further efforts to promote mutual understanding and to develop closer cooperation between the UK and Japan in order to tackle global issues. “By doing so,” he declared, “we would like to preserve the asset left by our predecessors who have worked so hard to harness this important bilateral relationship and to seek together possible ways to contribute to the prosperous development of a global society.”

Echoing the sentiments of Ambassador Hayashi and Mr Sasakawa, the Earl of St Andrews gave some further examples of the Programme’s success. Birkbeck College, he said, “now has a seamless progression from undergraduate to PhD level through the creation, helped by our post, of two BA degrees, an MA course and the opportunity for PhD supervision”. At the University of East Anglia the Sasakawa Lectureship had been “a major catalyst for expansion there with the creation in 2011 of a new Centre for Japanese Studies to lead and coordinate Japan-related teaching and research and to introduce new degree-level courses”. He concluded his remarks by describing how, with additional funding from The Nippon Foundation, the Programme had promoted a deeper understanding of Japan within the wider community through a number of outreach projects such as conferences and workshops in which the public had been able to participate.

Professor Peter Mathias, Honorary President of GBSF (L) and Mr Sasakawa (R)

Some 200 people attended the reception. Among them were key academics in the Japanese Studies community as well as the Sasakawa lecturers themselves, whose enthusiasm at the gathering attested to the initiative’s enormous success.

JICC