Japan - Social Science Research with Japan

The search for an appropriate partner department includes two stages. In the first stage, three representatives from ISS, the chair or deputy chair, the head of the Japan program, and another scholar will visit candidate universities in Japan. In the se cond phase, a researcher from each of the two most promising departments will be brought to ISS as short-term visiting scholars. This two step process will allow ISS to select the most suitable candidate department, a process that in its final stages wil l involve broader faculty and graduate student input. This will also give the partner department an opportunity to directly observe and evaluate ISS. The eight selected candidate schools are the Faculty of Policy Studies at Doshisha University, the F aculty of Law at Kyoto University (NTNU already has graduate level research and exchange agreements with Doshisha and Kyoto in the natural sciences), Osaka University's Graduate School of Public Policy (OSIPP), the Graduate School of Policy Studies at Kwa nsei Gakuin University, the Graduate School of Socio-Environmental Studies at Kanazawa University, the Graduate School of International Politics, Economics and Business at Aoyama Gakuin University, the Department of Sociology at Ochanomizu University, and the Graduate School of Research in Policy Studies (GRIPS). During a trip to Japan in the second quarter of 2006, ISS department representatives will spend one day visiting each department, assessing research capabilities and personnel. After returning to Norway this group's findings will be analyzed and a decision will be reached on the most suitable topic and the two most suitable candidate institutions. Invitations will then be issued to one scholar from each of these two candidate departments to co me to ISS for a short-term residence of one to two weeks. Follow-up applications for funding a multi-year research project will be submitted by the first quarter of 2007.