Nine students and four scholars from diverse academic fields at both Icelandic and Japanese universities, received grants from the Watanabe Trust Fund at the University of Iceland. The total amount of grants allocated at a ceremony at the University of Iceland on 27 April was close to eleven million Icelandic Krona. Toshizo Watanabe, founder of the fund and his wife, Hidemi Watanabe both attended the ceremony.
The Watanabe Trust Fund was established at the University of Iceland in 2008 and plays a significant part in strengthening the academic ties between Iceland and Japan. The fund gives Icelandic students and academics a unique chance to study and work at a Japanese university, and equally Japanese students and academics get the chance to study and work in Iceland, at the University of Iceland.
This was the seventh time scholarships are offered by the Fund when thirteen applicants received grants; eight from Iceland and five from Japan. The grantees are:
Árni Breki Ríkharðsson, BA student in Japanese Language and Culture, who receives a grant for exchange studies at the University of Nagoya.
Guðmundur Garðar Árnason, BA student in Japanese Language and Culture, who receives a grant for exchange studies at the Kyoto Sangyo University.
Erika Mita, BA student in the field of education at the International Christian University, who receives a grant for exchange studies at the University of Iceland's School of Education.
Marta Jónsdóttir, BA student of Law, who receives a grant for exchange studies in international law at the University of Nagoya.
Magdalena M. Jóhannesdóttir, MS student in Pharmacy, receives a 3 month for a research stay at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Azusa Yamada, graduated with a BA in Global Studies from Doshisha Womens College of Liberal Arts, receives a grant for MS studies in environment and natural resources at the University of Iceland with special emphasis on geothermal energy. Azusa is already studying at the University of Iceland.
Bryndís Ólafsdóttir, PhD student at the Faculty of Business Administration, receives a grant for a two month research stay in Japan. Her PhD project focuses on the entry mode internationalization of small and medium sized Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian export companies into Japan and South Korea.
Jin Jing, PhD student at Nagoya University in the field of human migration and cross-cultural understanding, received a grant for a five month research stay in Iceland studying the experience of Chinese and Japanese communities in Iceland.
Yuki Minamisawa, PhD student at Osaka University studying Scandinavian Languages and Cognitive Linguistics, received a grant for a two months stay in Iceland to do research with Icelandic source material.
Laura Malinauskaite, Project assistant and a researcher at United Nations Gender Equality Studies and Training (UNU-GEST), receives a grant for a two months stay at the United Nations University in Tokyo to work on her research project and study gender equality in the Geothermal Energy Sector in Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Ethiopia and New Zealand. She hopes that her stay will also strengthen the ties between in the UN institutes in Iceland and Japan.
Séverine Biard, Postdoctoral, researcher in Mathematics at the University of Iceland, receives a 10 day visit to Japan to work with professor Masanori Adachi at the Tokyo University of Science.
Maxwell Christopher Brown, Scientist working at Institute of Earth Science, University of Iceland, receives a grant for a two weeks stay and research in paleomagnetism at the Kochi University Center for Advanced Core Research. His work in Japan will be a continuation of Dr. Yuhji Yamomotos research in Iceland, who visited Iceland last summer, with support from the Watanabe Trust Fund to collect samples.
Kazufumi Osako, Associate professor of Graduate School of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (TUMSAT), received a grant for a 10 days stay in Iceland to build on trilateral agreement from 2008 between University of Iceland TUMSAT and Matis.
The Watanabe Trust Fund at the University of Iceland
The Watanabe Trust Fund was established at the University of Iceland in 2008 and plays a significant part in strengthening the academic ties between Iceland and Japan.
Mr. Toshizo Watanabe, who donated the founding contribution for the fund, is the founder of The Toshizo Watanabe Foundation and chairman emeritus of Nikken, a successful international wellness products company, with its headquarters in the United States. As a young man, he was an exchange student at the Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he made the acquaintance of ex-Prime Minister, Geir H. Haarde. Mr. Watanabe was able to study in the United States due to a scholarship he received and was eternally grateful to those who granted him this opportunity. Watanabe wanted to show his gratitude for the assistance he received by setting up a fund himself to encourage and assist students to study abroad. He contacted Geir H. Haarde, his former fellow student, with the intention to set up a trust fund at an Icelandic University.
Toshizo Watanabe addressed both grantees and guests at the ceremony yesterday. He is on the current board with Professor Már Másson, and former ambassador Ingimundur Sigfússon cand.jur.