Neues vom JSPS-Club 01/2024

Neues vom JSPS-Club 01/2024 (1,2 MB)

EVENTS

Institutional Member EJEA Conference “Riding the digital wave into the future: chances, risks and actions for Japan and Europe”

by Sabine Ganter-Richter, member of the JSPS Club

Photo: Participants of the EJEA Conference 2023 (courtesy of EJEA)

In 1995, Japan experts from 11 European countries and from the European Commission assembled at the Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB) to establish an alumni organization for the participants of a Japan fellowship program funded by Japanese industry – the European Japan Experts Association (EJEA). After 25 years of existence, EJEA is looking for new opportunities to establish an advanced, sustainable interdisciplinary network to provide a reliable foundation for enhancing the bridge between Europe and Japan by promoting the international understanding of Japan.

Against this background, EJEA launched an annual international conference series in 2018, highlighting current topics and trends by perspectives from different sectors and disciplines from Japan and Europe.

Under the title “Riding the digital wave into the future: chances, risks and actions for Japan and Europe”, the EJEA International Conference 2023 has been realized hybrid-style and was hosted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technologies FIT at the beautiful campus Schloss Birlinghoven in Sankt Augustin (Germany) on October 24^th and October 25^th 2023. The conference was co-organized by Linköping University (Sweden) and Kagawa University (Japan) in cooperation with the Deutsch-Japanische Gesellschaft Bonn, Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum WertNetzWerke, Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Ländliche Regionen, Network for Science, GRANITE network, TROWISTA, City of Troisdorf, and the German JSPS Alumni Association. EJEA is very grateful for the kind support of the German JSPS Club who acted as a sponsor for the EJEA conference 2023!

About 75 participants from seven countries actively contributed with presentations and discussions in six keynote lectures, and four workshop sessions. A guided tour through the Fraunhofer FIT offered insights into their latest research. The program was rounded off by a tour of the Schloss Birlinghoven, which was designed as an entrepreneur's villa. As planned and announced, the conference also offered wide space for networking, information exchange and socializing with partners from regional industry, administration, and academia, including the German JSPS Club, by posters, presentations, and informal talks.

Photo: Promoting the JSPS Club during the EJEA Conference 2023 (courtesy of EJEA)

All contributions and discussions during the conference have again underlined, that networking is necessary more than ever these days to maintain a stable and reliable foundation for European-Japanese relations. As mentioned in the farewell remarks, “networking” among European and Japanese stakeholders is a very crucial goal for EJEA and its cooperation partners. Also along this line, the German JSPS Alumni Association and the EJEA already in summer 2023 agreed to connect their networks by a mutual membership of their associations. EJEA is looking forward to continuing and enhancing this partnership between both associations as well as extending their networks and kindly asks you to save the date for the next hybrid EJEA international conference to be held in Sweden on November 5-7^th, 2024, under the title "Future knowledge and competence for AI-driven innovation in Europe and Japan".

Report on the 12^th Club Meeting in Nagoya

by Henrik Bachmann, member of the JSPS Club

Photo: Club meeting group picture (courtesy of Club member Jens Stellhorn)

The 12^th JSPS Club meeting in Japan was held at Nagoya University on 16^th December 2023, in the Toyoda Auditorium — a symbol of the city's rich heritage as the centre of Japan's automobile industry and its connection to Toyota, one of the world's leading car manufacturers. This venue is named after Sakichi Toyoda, the inventor of the Toyoda Automatic Looms, famously known as the origin of Toyota Motor Corporation.

Participants were warmly welcomed by Jens R. Stellhorn, the local organizer who, having recently transferred from Nagoya to Kyoto University, organized the event with the kind assistance of his wife.

Welcome remarks were delivered by Heinrich Menkhaus, Chair of the JSPS Club; Norimi Mizutani, representing both Nagoya University and its European Center; and Akie Hoshino, from JSPS's HQ International Policy Planning and Program Departments.

The first half of the scientific program featured a mixture of presentations. Roland Berkemeier from Nagoya University discussed the Nagoya University European Centre’s decade of networking and, being a scientist himself, advancements in brain-machine interfacing. He was followed by Koichi Hayashi from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, who talked about joint research in energy harvesting systems with FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. Yoshitaka Ito from Nagoya University transitioned the focus to cosmic ray and astroparticle physics, underscoring the meeting's diverse scientific spectrum.

The meeting concluded with a photo session and a buffet at the Universal Club.

Member of JSPS Club at the GFFA 2024 in Berlin

by Anton Kraus, member of the JSPS Club

This report is about the participation of our member Dr. Anton Kraus in the GFFA (Global Forum for Food and Agriculture) on January 18-19^th 2024 in Berlin.

As every year, the GFFA took place along the Green Week in Berlin. Around 2,000 international participants discussed food systems for our future: Joining forces for a zero hunger world! There were 16 Expert Panels and 2 High Level Panels hosted by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). For the first time, the GFFA and the Munich Security Conference (MSC) organized a joint high level debate, adding the increasing strategic security perspective to the value of agriculture and food production. I participated in two panels to capture the actual discussion and initiatives, also relevant for the scientific exchange. In my overall impression, however, more hypothetical discussions were evident even at high levels, e.g. the expectation that hunger is solved until 2030, although challenges are known and conflicts, climate, financial scrutiny, and regulations making food production increasingly more unpredictable.

Panel: Reducing food loss and waste of fruits and vegetables

Figure: Food waste in the EU by main economic sector, 2021 (eurostat)

Figure: Areas in that food waste occurs (taken from the presentation of Lawrence Haddad, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), GFFA 2024)

The overall framework is still that by 2050, the global agriculture must grow enough food for almost ten billion people while using fewer natural resources. In addition to finding new ways to satisfy this demand by growing more food crops, reducing of food loss and waste is fundamental.

Worldwide, 33% of all food produced is lost or wasted. In the EU, 53% of the food waste occurs in the households, it being mainly a result of consumer behavior and regulations. Solutions by systematic change of urban logistics, food packaging, replacing the date of minimum durability by the use by date, and excluding certain food from this indication, e.g. fresh fruit and vegetables shall be building blocks for less food waste.

The panel also discussed mechanisms of infrastructure development and economic incentives and changing urban food environments.

Regardless of how food loss and waste occur, many areas (19) are identified from crop handling until harvesting, which can damage crops if done improperly, reducing growth capacity or shelf life, up to interruptions or mistakes as foods are washed, peeled, sliced, or boiled, and culminating finally in waste when food isn’t consumed and discarded in the households.

Food losses that occur during growing, storage, grading and that occur in the field and on the farm due to environmental stress, inefficient machinery, or limited crop protection and technology were regrettably no topic of this GFFA panel.

Panel: Equity against hunger – CFS policy recommendations for food systems of the future

Inequality deprives millions of people of their right to food. Forty-one percent of the world’s population lacks the financial access to healthy diets. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) shall develop policy recommendations to identify pathways out of this crisis. However, on this panel, almost all kind of realistic discussion was extremely occupied - in my esteem - by activistic panelists and participants from church organization MISEREOR, and from NGOs like Friday for Future, Human Right Watch and Campesina landworkers. Like other agricultural experts, I was disappointed that this GFFA panel identified the only political priority to exclude industry and private enterprises from the equation against hunger. A low point of the GFFA 2024 and cheekiness considering funding, financing and contributions of the industries and private economies to fight hunger on the globe.

Joint European Research Organizations in Japan Shinnenkai

by Wilfried Wunderlich, member of the JSPS Club

Photo (courtesy of W. Wunderlich)

The first informal meeting of the Joint European Research Organizations in Japan was organized by Sarah Consentino on behalf of Association of Italian Researchers in Japan (AIRJ, Italy), including our JSPS Club, together with Asociación de Científicos Españoles en Japón (ACE, Spain), and Science-scope (France). Entitled as “Shinnenkai“, it took place on 26^th January in Tokyo University, Hongo Campus, at a party room on the 13^th floor of the Medical Faculty. Around 30 members of the four organizations gathered together and exchanged news and opinions while drinking and eating. Among the JSPS members were Heinrich Menkhaus, Hans-Georg Matuttis, Wolfgang Ertl, Jaqueline Urakami, Wilfried Wunderlich and three younger Germans who are not yet members of the Club.

JaDe Foundation prize award and 25th anniversary ceremony in Cologne

by Niklas Kolbe, member of the JSPS Club

Photo: from left to right: laureates for the DJJG O. Pohl (left) and J. Weickmann (right) and chair of JaDe Foundation Prof. Werner Pascha (courtesy of N. Kolbe)

On the 17^th of February, the Foundation for the Promotion of Japanese-German Scientific and Cultural Relations (JaDe Foundation) held the award ceremony for the JaDe-Prize at the Japanese Culture Institute (JKI) in Cologne. The biannually awarded prize was presented to the German-Japanese Youth Association (DJJG) for their voluntary work. The association, which the JSPS Club financially supports, was particularly honored for their Youth Summit program “Hallo Deutschland” that brings together young people from Japan and Germany to meet and discuss recent topics of common interest. The prize was received by the board members Oliver Pohl and Jakob Weickmann, who were present at the ceremony, along with many further volunteers of the association. The JSPS Club regularly sponsors the program financially. The occasion was also used to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the JaDe Foundation in 2025. Video messages from former prize winners were shown to commemorate this event.  Performances by the Taiko group Lion and Yuko Kojima playing the shinobue flute accompanied the program of the ceremony.

Meetings of the regional chapter Rhein-Ruhr in Essen

by Katja Koelkebeck, board member of the JSPS Club

Photo: Meeting in December: from left Lothar Wigger, Masao Watanabe, Anton Kraus, K. Koelkebeck, Hans-Ulrich Simmrock, Heidi Wigger (courtesy of K. Koelkebeck)

Photo: Meeting in March: from left Anton Kraus, Manfred Schneider, Matthias Roegner (courtesy of K. Koelkebeck)

On the 17^th of December 2023 and on the 26^th of March 2024, the regional chapter Rhein-Ruhr met at the Japanese restaurant Byakko in Essen. Six members from the region joined the meeting in December and four members in March, enjoying authentic Japanese appetizers and sushi by the chef from Nara, Masanori “Fox” Takase. For the first time since Katja Koelkebeck took over as the leader of the regional chapter, also a native Japanese scientist participated in one of the regional Club meetings in December. During the meetings, science, politics across countries and other Japan-related topics as travels and work-related stays were discussed in a lively fashion.

Lecture on Japanese Kampo medicine by Dr. Kenny Kuchta at the invitation of the Rhine-Ruhr regional group

by Katja Koelkebeck, board member, and Kenny Kuchta, member of the JSPS Club

Photo: screenshot of the zoom session, K. Kuchta on the bottom

Kampo medicine (kanji meaning “method of Han dynasty China”) is the knowledge of the traditional academic medicine of Japan that was - until the Meiji restauration - transmitted amongst professional doctors in a master-student relationship. This differentiates Kampo from pure folk medicine (Jap. Minkanyaku) practiced by laypersons. In the context of Japan’s westernization from 1880 onwards, only doctors educated in Western style medicine were allowed to practice medicine. However, since the health boom of the 1960ies, medications that were approved until 1880 can again be officially used today.

More than 80% of the used medicinal plants are identical to those used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Differences to this are the standardized prescription that is common in Kampo medicine, the quality of the drugs, so that a finer cut and a lower dosage are possible.

In Japan today, only Western-trained doctors are allowed to prescribe Kampo. It is a subject taught in the standard curriculum of all medical faculties of Japanese universities.

The first description of herbal medicine in Japan dates back to the 7^th century and was described in the Kojiki. Here, the healing of a white hare from bite wounds with the help of cattail pollen (Jap. gama) is described. The first Japanese medical book, the Isshimpo, was written by Tamba no Yasu­­yori in 982-984 based on books imported from China and Korea. The most well-known raw drugs are licorice – in Germany also used in Heumann tea as an antiviral medicine for the common cold and influenza - ginger, peony (an antispasmodic also used traditionally in Europe), cinnamon, jujube, ginseng, Angelica acutiloba, and Poria cocos, a tuber-forming, underground fungus.

There are different schools of Kampo taught that differ severely in their level of orientation towards TCM. The most common of these is Kohoha, which is based on the systematic collection of empirical experience concerning the change of patients’ symptoms under therapy and largely rejects philosophical speculations about the internal processes within the body in stark difference to TCM, where such concepts play an important role. As Kohoha bases its thoughts mainly on the amount of accumulated experience from the efficacy of its prescriptions, this school of Kampo medicine prefers prescriptions with a long documented tradition, e.g. those already found in the continental books quoted in the Isshimpo.

Two of the most commonly used Kohoha Kampo preparations are Shikunshito (similar to the effect of a proton pump inhibitor) and Rikkunshito (similar with additional choleretic effects). These preparations are mixed from the above-mentioned raw drugs.

In China and Korea, there are two clearly separated systems of Eastern practitioners and Western medicine practitioners but in Japan, Kampo treatment can be prescribed by all Japanese physicians. There are ready-made products available over the counter in pharmacies that can be prescribed. However, free-hand mixtures can only be prepared by doctors trained in Kampo, which has the advantage that preparations can also be mixed according to individual requirements (e.g. allergies). Kampo training is similar to a specialist training, but is often also combined with other disciplines, such as internal medicine. Two-week Kampo courses are mandatory for medical students. The traditional Kampo diagnosis has five steps: 1) viewing the face, 2) questioning conversation for symptom clarification, 3) viewing the tongue, 4) feeling the pulse, and 5) abdominal palpation. Amongst these, abdominal palpation is especially important and typical for Kampo as it is only rarely performed on the continent.

There are a total of 148 common reimbursable traditional prescriptions as readymade extract preparations and 294 traditional prescriptions as over the counter medications. Thirty-three Kampo prescriptions have such strong evidence that they are included in the Japanese pharmacopoeia with individual monographs.

Very frequently prescribed are, for example, Maoto and Kakkonto, both of which are helpful against symptoms of common cold and influenza. However, Kakkonto refers more to symptoms of coldness (chills) and Maoto to hotness (sweating, fever). This is typical for Kampo the basic approach of which is to treat the entire body including all observed symptoms everywhere and not to see symptoms in one organ system in isolation as typical for Western medicine.

In Japan, Kampo preparations are used e.g. also in the treatment of attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); here the preparation Yokukan-san has good evidence and is reimbursable, even for other nervous conditions.

Research is currently finding scientific evidence for the use of Kampo for wounds, cachexia and gastroesophageal reflux. It has been shown that Kampo in combination with chemotherapy leads to significantly longer survival due to the activation of immune cells. Dr. Kuchta is also involved in this latter research.

In Germany, Kampo medicine can be registered as Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products if it can be demonstrated that the respective prescription has been used for at least 15 years within the EU - with a positive benefit-risk assessment. In Germany, for example, the Kampo preparation Rikkunshito, which is available in pharmacies under the product name Yamato®Gast. It has been registered in Germany for heat burn, stomach upset, stomach pain, and digestive problems. In Japan, Rikkunshito is also used for adjuvant tumor therapy for cachectic patients receiving chemotherapy. However, in the EU, Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products may not be advertised for use in life-threatening illnesses.

One of the major challenges for Kampo in Japan is the fact that most of the medicinal plants on which it relies are not cultivated domestically but are imported primarily from China.

For a deeper reading interest, the Kampo Medicine Guide by Ulrich Eberhard can serve as a reference work. Unfortunately, it is out of print, but it may be possible to purchase it second-hand until a new edition is published. Also, the book by Katsutoshi Terasawa called Kampo was recommended. The International Society for Japanese Kampo Medicine (ISJKM) connects Kampo research globally.

Dr. Kenny Kuchta works in the “Forschungsstelle für Fernoestliche Medizin” at the University of Goettingen as well as visiting lecturer, among others, at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and as Prof. h.c. at the Zhejiang Institute of TCM and Natural Medicine, Hangzhou, China.

A link to the presentation recording can be found on the Club homepage in the member-restricted area.

Podcast Science S*heroes: Episode with Daniela Winkler

by Daniela Winkler, board-member of the JSPS Club

Our Club-member Daniela Winkler (Kiel University) was invited as a guest to the science podcast “Science S*heroes”, hosted by Christiane Attig and Rebecca Moltmann. She talked about her research on vertebrate dental wear and diet reconstruction in extinct species, and her perspective on experimental approaching involving living animals, but also about her experiences as a female scientist during her two-year JSPS-funded postdoctoral stay at the University of Tokyo. Daniela Winkler reports on her relationship with her female host professor, Mugino Kubo, and how she perceived cultural differences when interacting with other male professors or collaborators.

The interview is in German and can be listened to here:

https://sciencesheroes.letscast.fm/episode/fluoreszierende-felle-wichtige-weisheitszaehne-und-bioethik

In 1992, I managed that Yasuko Ishikawa became visiting professor at Osnabrück University for a year at my invitation. The outcome was the wonderful book “Woman with flag” (see picture), which presents the emancipation of women in Germany – especially in the city of Osnabrück – in comparison to Japan, and it became a bestseller in Japan (see left picture: “Woman with flag”published by Yasuko Ishikawa, cover picture is by Johannes Eidt, president of the German-Japanese Society Osnabrück).

Akihiro co-organized the Second International Conference Globalization in East Asia: Past and Present in 1999 at Chuo University, with my active participation, and which became a big success with an appropriate publication.

Another very decisive meeting was with late Prof. Narihiko Ito also at Chuo University in 1991, founding president of the International Rosa Luxemburg Society. It became a life-long deep friendship. I invited him twice as visiting professor to Osnabrück. The outcome was, amongst other things, a book on Peace Article Number 9, which was first published in Japanese, and then under my guidance it was translated into German, edited and published with a foreword by myself in 2001 (see left picture: “Der Friedensartikel der japanischen Verfassung“ by Narahiko Ito, the late president of the International Luxemburg Society on Japan’s Peace Article No. 9 – edited and with a foreword by György Széll (editor: agenda Münster)).

He invited me from 2003 to 2005 to become a member of the International Criminal Courts on Afghanistan and Iraq. And he organized the 15^th International Rosa Luxemburg Congress in 2007 in Tokyo, where I took very actively part.

A further sustainable encounter was with Shuji Yamada, who was my Ph.D. student in 1991 at Chuo University, and who became not only a colleague at Bunkyo University but a very good friend as well. Since then, he came quite often with his students to Osnabrück, and he reciprocated by several invitations to me – supported by a DAAD-JSPS grant in 2009.

In spring 1993, I had the pleasure to be re-invited back to Japan as visiting professor – this time to Seikei University Asia-Pacific Centre as well as to Hitotsubashi University. The latter invitation came by Prof. Dr. Shujiro Yazawa, whom I met earlier via the International Association of Sociology. Hitotsubashi University even offered me then a position as full professor, however, I had to decline it due to too many other obligations. Actually, I accepted the nomination in 2003 at the Institute for Economic Research – but only for one year before my retirement. It was the best position I ever had – only research, no teaching obligations. Shujiro Yazawa also invited me to become a member of the International Council of the International Journal of Japanese Sociology in 1992, which lasted until 2018.

The stay in 1993 gave me also the opportunity to co-operate with the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, and I took part at their mission Research and Development in Japan, which was really a very important insight for me into the whole spectrum of research in Japan. Another invitation as visiting professor at the School of Social Studies of Hitotsubashi followed in October 1996. It gave me the occasion to co-organize the Diamond Publisher Second German-Japanese Symposium on Knowledge Transfer between Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Japan and Germany and another one in regard to Environmental Protection and some days later at Hitotsubashi University.

Locally, I invested myself within the German-Japanese Society of Osnabrück, becoming its managing vice-president in the late 1990ies. In 2018, the same German-Japanese Society of Osnabrück awarded me with the Honorary Prize for my merits to implement research on Japan in our region. Together with my former student Wilhelm Meemken, I had already established the ECOS Consult company to relate theory and praxis. As Wilhelm was married to a Japanese wife, the company very soon specialized on Japanese-German projects. Amongst other activities, we organized in 1993 for the RKW the seminar Going Japan.

In the follow-up, I created the Japan Research Centre at the University of Osnabrück in 1994 – the only of its kind in the Land of Lower Saxony until today. This centre published since then in its series 26 papers. And it served to host quite a few visiting professors and Ph.D. students from Japan. Since 2010, my successor as director of the Japan Research Centre is Prof. Dr. Carmen Schmidt, whose habilitation commission I chaired, and who is president of the German-Japanese Society for Social Sciences since 2019.

I am convinced that for a social scientist it is important to have lived and worked not only in Europe but foremost overseas, i.e. in the USA, a Third World country and East Asia, especially in Japan. Therefore, I initiated co-operation agreements with several Japanese universities, which last until today: besides the already mentioned Chuo and Hitotsubashi Universities they are the Yokohama National University, Okinawa International University, Hiroshima University and Kobe University. I initiated and coordinated three DAAD-HOST-Programmes as well with Chuo and Hitotsubashi Universities from 1998 to 2005.

To express my gratitude to the DAAD, which supported my scientific career through many grants since 1965, I became a member of its overseas selection committee, namely for Japan in the 1990ies, for more than 20 years.

Amongst the many projects I conducted in Japan, I have a special reference to the ZERO-Emission project, which was conducted together with Rüdiger Kühr and the United Nations University in Tokyo from 1997 to 1999. Rüdiger passed his Ph.D. in 2011 under my guidance with a thesis on “Japan’ s Transnational Environmental Policies. The Case of Environmental Technology Transfer to Newly Industrializing Countries”. He became director at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in Bonn and professor at the University of Limerick. In 1999, I invited the UN Undersecretary General Yasushi Akashi to Osnabrück for a Peace Talk on Japan’s Role in Peace Politics during the 21^st century.

Prof. Dr. Tsuyoshi Tsuru – from the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University – was first visiting professor in Osnabrück twice before he invited me back several times. Stefan Hochstadt, a former Ph.D. student of mine, joined me in 2004 at Hitotsubashi University for a research project with a DAAD-JSPS grant. He became later a very active member of the JSPS Club.

Amongst the nearly 100 Ph.D. theses which I supervised, there were also four concerned with Japan – by two Germans and two Japanese. Rüdiger Kühr I mentioned already. Kotaro Oshige received his Ph.D. for a German-Japanese comparative study of their respective electro industries in 1999. Soon afterwards he became professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto. His wife received her Ph.D. at the University Osnabrück a little bit later, too.

I have been president of RC 24 “Environment and Society” of the International Sociological Association from 1990 to 1994, and that is how I met Prof. Dr. Yoshi Mitsuda from Bukkyo University in Kyoto. He remains, in regard to environmental sociology, my main counterpart in Japan until today. He was twice visiting professor in Osnabrück and myself three times in Kyoto. He organized the excellent Kyoto Environmental Sociology Conference in 2001 with a keynote by me.

The late Prof. Dr. Ken’ichi Tominaga also remained an important contact for me within Japan. I first met him during the XII^th World Congress of Sociology in Madrid 1990. He organized the 7^th meeting of the German-Japanese Society for Social Sciences in Yokohama in 2002. And we edited the proceedings together. While being re-invited by Chuo University in 2001 with another DAAD-JSPS grant, I had the privilege to be selected afterwards for the 30^th Human Resources Training Programme (HRTP) of the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation. But definitely one of the high-lights of my co-operation with Japan was the co-organization of the congress “Environment and Science – Concepts and Strategic Goals for the Future” within the “Germany in Japan Year” in Tokyo in 2005. Also, the participation at the 9^th meeting of the German-Japanese Society for Social Sciences in 2006 in Kanazawa was quite relevant for me. As the vice-president of the German-Japanese Society for Social Sciences, I organized its 10^th meeting in 2008 on “Quality of Working Life in Comparison” in Osnabrück (see picture left: Publication of the Proceedings of the 10^th Symposium of the German-Japanese Society for Social Sciences, edited by György and Ute Széll).

In 2010, I was involved in the project “Science in Society – a challenge in Japan” with a presentation at the 3^rd Symposium [Science Technology and Humanity] Ristex R&D Focus Area together with Shuji Yamada and Prof. Dr. Masanobu Ishikawa from Kobe University, who invited me in November 2010 to give a keynote speech at the congress “The role of information disclosure on corporate environmental management”.

Photo: The speakers and organizers of the German-Japanese symposium on the Fukushima catastrophe, on 4^th November 2011 at the Volkshochschule (courtesy of G. Széll)

Photo: G. Széll receiving the Prize of the German-Japanese Society by Sonoi Eidt on Osnabrück on 29 November 2018 (courtesy of G. Széll)

Altogether, I organized and co-organized many German-Japanese workshops and conferences as well in Germany as in Japan – mainly on labour relations, sustainable development and international comparison. And a large number of publications came out of this cooperation. My latest seminar and publication was concerned with the Fukushima catastrophe in 2011 (see picture).

Besides, I gave dozens of lectures all over Japan – namely in Osaka, Sapporo, Okinawa, Tsukuba, Kagoshima, at the International Christian University, Keio University, Sophia University, Yokohama National University, the German Institute for Japan Studies, Hiroshima University, and Kobe University. A special relation exists with the East Asiatic Society (OAG) in Tokyo as well as in Kobe, where I gave several lectures and contributed to its publications.

My cooperation in North-East Asia shifted more and more to China from 2001 on, and from 2005 on to South Korea. I was one of the main protagonists to create the DAAD-Centre for German and European Studies at Chung Ang University in Seoul, which expanded to a trilateral network with Peking and Tokyo Universities since 2015, and with annual rotating meetings. One of the activities was the founding of the Open Access Asian Journal of German and European Studies, where I served as editor-in-chief.

So far, my last visit to Japan was as visiting professor at Bunkyo University’s new Adachi Campus in November 2023. It was also the occasion to re-meet the Ishikawa couple, who had revisited Osnabrück in 2019. Altogether, I worked and lived for about five years in Japan. Summarizing, I can say that my co-operation with Japan changed my scientific culture fundamentally and enriched my life. I met colleagues who became dear friends for my whole life. And I learned to appreciate Japanese culture – foremost Noh and Kabuki theatre – and food as well as drinks. I recommended to all my students and colleagues to get to know this fascinating country and people – with all its contradictions. I lectured at sixty universities in thirty countries, the most productive and pleasant stays were in Japan.

More information can be found on my homepage:
https://www.sozialwissenschaften.uni-osnabrueck. de/mitarbeiter_detailseiten/szell_gyoergy.html
and publications under:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gyoergy_Szell
Contact: gszell@uos.de