Arrived in Tokyo to be greeted by a long red carpet and military guard of honour. Regrettably the carpet is rolled up and the guard long gone by the time that I get off the plane. I know my place鈥�
Straight off to join colleagues from the British Council at the British Embassy for a roundtable discussion on university 鈥減ublic engagement鈥� with representatives from several leading Japanese universities. The meeting was opened with short presentations from David Willetts and Hitoshi Nara from the Japanese Ministry of Education. David spoke about the introduction of 鈥渋mpact鈥� in the REF as an illustration of a way in which the government judged 鈥減ublic engagement鈥�. This was met with great curiosity by our Japanese colleagues who were interested to know how the government would measure the impact of research. David neatly sidestepped the issue by indicating that impact will be determined by the peer review processes established for the REF.
Southampton was the case study of public engagement for the UK and I spoke about the different ways in which the University engages with schools and the local community, with the media, and with business. We learned that this type of university public engagement is relatively new to Japan but has received far greater attention since the earthquake/tsunami disaster in 2010 – referred to in Japan as 鈥�3/11鈥�. The case study from Japan was presented by Professor Toshiya Ueki from Tohuku University. Tohuku was the university closest to the earthquake epicentre and mobilised its staff and students to help with the disaster response, and has since created a major national interdisciplinary research centre focussed on disaster response and mitigation. It was a humbling presentation illustrating the extraordinary response of one university to extraordinary circumstances.
It is hard to appreciate the traumatic effects of the 3/11 disaster on Japanese society. It has led to considerable soul searching about the preparedness of the country for such a disaster, and a great anxiety about the threat of nuclear disaster, and the future of nuclear energy in the country. Universities have been called upon to respond to these needs in ways that has not been previously expected in Japan and each of the universities represented at the roundtable were doing so in different ways.
One final input came from Martin Bean the VC of the Open University who spoke about their fascinating experiment with public engagement.
The day finished off with a 鈥淐herry Blossom Viewing鈥� at the Embassy. I wasn鈥檛 sure what this was when I received the original invitation, but it is a great Japanese custom to celebrate during the week in the year when the cherry trees are in full bloom, and it seems to involve the consumption of a great deal of whilst considering the beauty of the cherry blossoms. I can recommend it!
The PM arrived a little late after a private dinner with the Japanese PM and provided a rousing pro-UK business speech to the assembled group of British and Japanese businessmen (there were very few women). David Willetts told me that at his private meeting with the Minister of Education the Japanese had expressed a wish for collaboration in marine sciences and he has recommended Southampton as a lead partner in such a collaboration 鈥� something we will follow up in the coming days.
Off to bed for a 4:30am start to get to Jakarta.