The Japan Foundation (JF) has been managing “Collaborative Research Workshop for Aspiring Scholars in Japanese Studies” since 2018 FY and Prof. Sonoda, chair of the GAS (Global Asian Studies) program, has been serving as a program advisor from the beginning. This year, twenty-two graduate students from eighteen universities in nine Asian countries/regions (South Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and India) joined the in-person program (Phase 2) in Tokyo. The participants and two JF staffs visited GAS program on 17th of February, 2023.

Six graduate students from three graduate schools in UTokyo met with twenty-two participants students from Asia and discussed a variety of issues on their researches on/in Japan. After the discussion, they walked around the Hongo Campus and continued to discuss over the lunch. Now Asian networks of Japanese studies are rapidly developing in a variety of forms, and the GAS program at Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia hopes to contribute to the development of such networks.