Harald Kümmerle, senior research fellow at the DIJ since January of this year, has been selected as the recipient of the Johannes Zilkens Dissertation Prize 2020. Every year, the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) awards this prize for an outstanding dissertation from the humanities and social sciences. It is endowed with 5,000 euros.

Kümmerle has defended his dissertation on the “Institutionalization of mathematics as a science in Meiji- and Taishō-era Japan” at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in January 2019. According to the interdisciplinary jury, it “impressively bridges mathematics, Japanese Studies, and social sciences”. The work gives “important impulses for the advancement of Japanese Studies, and extending beyond this, for the understanding of the development of sites of science and the organization of knowledge transfer”.

https://www.studienstiftung.de/aktuelles/artikel/studienstiftung-vergibt-promotionspreise-2020-arbeiten-aus-der-chemie-und-japanologie-ausgezeichnet/

　この度、慶應義塾大学琴坂将広研究室では、ドイツ日本研究所(DIJ)と協力し、国内における「技術集約型スタートアップの経営環境等に関するアンケート調査」を実施することとなりました。
　本調査は、慶應義塾大学と日本ドイツ研究所が、高麗大学、湖西大学、リバプール西安交通大学、及び重慶大学の研究者と共同で実施する国際研究活動です。

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Barbara Holthus was interviewed for BBC on the continuing importance of mothers for providing lunch bento boxes to their children.

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Franz Waldenberger, Barbara Holthus, and Sonja Ganseforth appeared in an Austrian TV report on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They provided expert commentary on Japan’s Olympic legacy desires, anti-Olympic protests, and the Olympic agenda on diversity. The report was broadcast by the Austrian public TV station ORF during their flagship sports program “Sunday Sports” (in German) on June 16th.

The DIJ currently prepares a book covering a wide range of topics related to the Tokyo Olympics. Its tentative title is “Japan through the lens of the Tokyo Olympics” and it is due to be published in January 2020.

The DIJ Tokyo is partner with the multi-disciplinary and transnational EU project “ACCESS – Supporting Digital Literacy and Appropriation of ICT by Older People”, which is coordinated by Professor Claudia Müller of the University of Siegen. Goals are to explore and evaluate ways for elderly people to learn the usage of modern ICT solutions that promise a better social participation and an overall improvement of the quality of life. The DIJ is responsible for the project’s Japan-related research.

The DIJ and the Institut français de recherche sur le Japon à la Maison franco-japonaise concluded a Memorandum of Understanding in which both institutions agreed upon closer exchanges in the areas of socio-scientific and humanistic Japanese Studies. The Memorandum of Understanding places particular emphasis on developing and expanding the potential of joint research and events.