Conference 2022

On November 4, 1995, Japan experts from 11 European countries and from the European Commission established an alumni organization for the participants of a Japan-fellowship program funded by Japanese companies – the European Japan Experts Association e.V. (EJEA).

Conceived as an interdisciplinary association with a European profile and open to experts from academia, government, and industry, EJEA is a sustainable interdisciplinary network and develops initiatives at a European level to promote cooperation, exchange, synergy, and knowledge transfer between Europe and Japan.

EJEA aims:

• – to be an “umbrella” for serving existing organizations
  • – to bundle European “voices” from a broad range of disciplines
  • – to be a “platform” for discussions about Japan-Europe related topics

In the process of strengthening and expanding EJEA’s network between Japan and Europe, the Association started its annual conference series in 2018.

Website: www.ejea.e

For about 30 years now, Fraunhofer FIT has been conducting R&D on user-friendly smart solutions that blend seamlessly into business processes. Our clients benefit from more efficient processes and increased quality, internal connectivity, and staff satisfaction. Fraunhofer FIT is your partner of choice for digitization, Industry 4.0 projects, and IoT solutions. Our researchers work in interdisciplinary teams and combine insights from computer science with questions from other fields. Thus, the institute invents and develops applications custom-tailored to support people in their jobs and to enrich their leisure time. Our specific strength is a comprehensive system design process, from the test and validation of concepts to the handover of well-implemented systems. About 200 researchers with backgrounds in Computer Science, the Social Sciences, Business Administration, Economics, Psychology, and Engineering are organized in FIT’s five departments and cooperate closely with the Information Systems group at RWTH Aachen University. In addition to our headquarters in Sankt Augustin and Aachen, Fraunhofer FIT has two branch offices: the project group Business and Information Systems Engineering at Augsburg University and Bayreuth University, and the Fraunhofer application center SYMILA in Hamm.

Website: www.fit.fraunhofer.de

In close collaboration with the business world and society, Linköping University (LiU) conducts world-leading, boundary-crossing research in fields including materials science, IT, and hearing. In the same spirit, the university offers many innovative educational programs, many of them with a clear vocational focus, leading to qualification as, for example, doctors, teachers, economists, and engineers. Linköping University is an AI research excellence center with strong and broad research and education in AI both from a technical and interdisciplinary perspective. Coordinator of one of the four EU-funded networks of AI research excellence centers (TAILOR). Host of the largest basic research program in Sweden (WASP, Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program) as well as the Wallenberg AI and Transformative Technologies Education Development Program (WASP-ED). Host of the National Supercomputer Center including an NVIDIA SuperPOD (Berzelius). The university has 32,400 students and 4,100 employees on four campuses. Together we seek answers to the complex questions facing us today. Our students are among the most desirable in the labor market, and international rankings consistently place LiU as a leading global university. LiU achieved university status in 1975, and innovation is our only tradition.

RIKEN 理化学研究所 is Japan’s largest and most comprehensive research organization for basic and applied science and a world leader in a diverse array of scientific disciplines.
Since its foundation in 1917, RIKEN has fostered pioneering, innovative research in fields spanning the entire range of the natural sciences, from traditional yet still developing fields like physics and chemistry to new frontiers including regenerative medicine and artificial intelligence.
Today, RIKEN encompasses a network of world-class research centers across Japan, with main campuses in Wako, Tsukuba, Yokohama, Kobe, and Harima. RIKEN also develops and operates state-of-the-art facilities that rank among the best in the world. This high-quality, high-performance research environment, combined with a uniquely bottom-up approach to scientific innovation, has enabled RIKEN to foster an environment in which researchers are able to thrive.
RIKEN is also an international institute, with approximately 800 out of 3500 non-Japanese research personnel from around the world.
Central to RIKEN’s success as a top-class research hub is the collaboration and support between its many centers, laboratories, and state-of-the-art research facilities, distributed over many different locations within and outside of Japan.
RIKEN’s activities can be divided into four main categories: Strategic Research Centers, Research Infrastructure Centers, the Cluster for Pioneering Research, and the Cluster for Science, Technology, and Innovation Hub. These four groupings interact within an integrated research system, bringing together pioneering science and top-class research facilities to meet national and social needs, and are further enhanced by active collaborations both within and outside RIKEN, and Japan.

Website: https://www.riken.jp/en/

At the instigation of the then heads of government of the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan, Helmut Kohl (†) and Nakasone Yasuhiro (†), the non-profit foundation Japanese-German Center Berlin (Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum Berlin, JDZB) was established in 1985. It was a time when the interests of the two states began to grow strongly for each other, and the JDZB was entrusted with the task, “to promote and deepen Japanese-German and international cooperation in the fields of science and culture…in particular by supporting German-Japanese mutual understanding at all levels of economic life to improve cooperation in science, research, and culture.” (Extract from the Foundation Deed)

Website: www.jdzb.de

The GRANITE project is an effort to expand international collaborations and build a strong and long-lasting relationship between Germany and Japan. The goal is to establish a sustainable network between partners in applied research and technology that share information, transfer knowledge, and put innovation into practice. The EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement has enabled projects like GRANITE to take place by removing restrictive trade barriers and making it easier for countries to connect with one another. GRANITE offers companies a science-based engineering method, whereby we first systematically analyze and evaluate the specific challenges for the individual company in terms of digitization and then present them with a tailor-made strategy for their own digital transformation. As one of the top 10 research networks from Germany to showcase their promising technologies and new work concepts to leading scientists, researchers, innovators, and decision-makers around the globe, GRANITE is sponsored by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for its latest campaign “The Future of Work.” GRANITE is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, located near the former German capital Bonn. Alongside the project partner Lyogroup International, the GRANITE network was successfully established in 2019.

Website: https://granite-ambassadors.com

The Institute for Security and Development Policy is a Stockholm-based non-profit and non-partisan research and policy organization, supported by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ISDP is dedicated to expanding understanding of international affairs, focusing on the inter-relationship between security, conflict, and development. The Institute strongly believes in ethnic diversity, gender equality, and religious and political freedom and firmly stands for it in all aspects of its work.

ISDP’s work aims at providing strategic analysis and practical solutions to assist decision-makers in both the public and private sectors to achieve their goals. The Stockholm Japan Center of ISDP aims at becoming a leading forum for research and discussions on the political, social, and cultural aspects of Japan and its global role.

Website: www.isdp.eu

Kagawa University is one of the national universities in Japan and has six undergraduate faculties and seven graduate schools. At the undergraduate level, all courses are conducted in the Japanese language. Both visiting international students at the graduate level along with visiting researchers may carry out their studies or conduct their research through the medium of English. Three of the graduate schools are in the natural sciences (Medicine, Engineering, and Agriculture), while four are in the social sciences (Education, Law, Economics, and Management).

Website: www.kagawa-u.ac.jp