RENKEI celebrates a decade of innovative collaboration, and maps out the potential for further growth
When RENKEI was launched, in 2012, it was a pioneering initiative: there were international higher education organisations promoting student exchange and internationalisation, but few bilateral consortia pursuing strategic alliances with a focus on research. An event to celebrate its tenth anniversary was held at the International House of Japan in Tokyo on 30 September 2022, bringing together the RENKEI members with key external stakeholders and thought leaders to look back at the consortium’s achievements, identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities, and brainstorm its future direction.
The event was opened by representatives of both governments: Julia Longbottom, the British Ambassador to Japan, and Yosei Ide, the State Minister for Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology, together with a surprise appearance via video message from former British Prime Minister Theresa May, who had recently visited Japan. All three reaffirmed the alignment of RENKEI’s founding mission with government priorities in both countries, recognizing its contribution in terms of fostering bilateral exchange and collaboration among the next generation of researchers and leaders. They spoke of the critical role of collaborative research in providing solutions for pressing issues for the whole planet, and of RENKEI’s part in encouraging this. They also emphasised the strength of the bilateral relationship, and spoke of the growing number of jointly-funded research calls, as well as new student mobility schemes like Turing, which offer opportunities to expand its activities further.
RENKEI members then reflected together on the consortium’s achievements in its two current areas of focus, climate change and health, and its next steps. In climate change, deep relationships have been forged across disciplines and career stages as well as national borders. Early career researchers have been supported through seed funding, and through the RENKEI Climate Adaptation and Resilience Fellowships, implemented this year using a £200,000 RENKEI Anniversary Grant. This mentoring scheme is a successful model with the potential to be replicated in other areas of RENKEI’s work. Meanwhile, the COP26 Trilateral Research Project brought in new funding and partners, offering another prospective model for the future: while what makes RENKEI special is the UK-Japan relationship, the consortium can also consider including ODA partners in future projects.
Work in the area of health is at an earlier stage, but the pandemic has highlighted the importance of this area, and pushed RENKEI to do more work remotely, with the first RENKEI health workshop held entirely online. Such initiatives will continue to be important as the consortium pursues sustainability, and will allow more early career researchers to be involved.
Climate change and health remain top global priorities, and the focus on them will continue. There is potential to expand the definition of health to include more social aspects, and to examine the overlap between the two areas, as well as to address other emerging topics such as the various facets of security. At the same time, interdisciplinarity remains a key strength, enabling the consortium to reach a wide range of researchers and topics, going beyond obvious science and engineering solutions.
The latter half of event looked at ways of strengthening RENKEI’s impact through further collaboration with different sectors. Dr Tadahisa Kagimoto, a very successful entrepreneur who has founded companies working in both the climate and health fields, and Osamu Kobayashi, Director, Department of International Affairs, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), a major funding agency, gave presentations on developing closer relationships with government and industry, followed by a panel discussion. These themes were developed further in the keynotes, given by Prof. Paul Monks, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, UK, and Chad Evans, Executive Vice-President of the United States Council on Competitiveness.
The speakers confirmed that there are various possibilities for RENKEI to work with industry and the public sector to commercialise research. Universities are under pressure to drive economic growth after the pandemic, while many companies want to adopt new technologies, but do not know how to link with the science base. RENKEI would be well-placed to facilitate such links.
In order for RENKEI to innovate even further, Professor Monks suggested that the consortium catalyse change, modelling best practice on saving the planet and planetary health. He emphasized the importance of systems science, which goes beyond interdisciplinarity.
Chad Evans spoke of the importance of champions, a compelling mission, and a cutting-edge agenda. RENKEI has champions within government, as this event demonstrated, with scope to identify more given its alignment with official agendas. Its fundamental mission has the potential to be compelling for the private sector, too, if RENKEI can offer to help partners solve specific problems. Relationships are crucial, as all parties have to understand each other’s perspectives and priorities before co-creating projects.
Panellists also talked of the need for an ecosystem approach to develop such relationships between all partners, based on regular open discussions. These would identify national and bilateral priorities and the specific policies, funding and research needed to tackle these. However, as the focus of societal challenges will change, RENKEI members also recognized the need to embrace agility and work in new ways.
RENKEI has a depth of powerful research which can be connected and activated to address global issues with the support of resourcing from government and the identification of upcoming opportunities by entrepreneurs. Its track record of collaboration, accumulated trust and understanding, and research expertise are among its greatest strengths.
The UK-Japan bilateral relationship is very strong, in education and in other fields. Both governments are supportive of RENKEI’s activities, particularly those which involve nurturing early career researchers with international experience. At the same time, new initiatives will increase the number of students travelling between the two countries, and student exchange, at all levels, is an area of interest to many RENKEI members.
In the words of Professor Monks, then, RENKEI is “spoilt for choice”. The consortium has talented people, an established collaboration, deep understanding of partners, and many challenges to choose from in order to make an impact over the next ten years. This is the ideal time for RENKEI to develop even bigger ambitions.