Researchers at Cambridge University and Imperial College London have been awarded grants to boost scientific collaborations with counterparts in Japan.
The Japan Partnering Awards, sponsored by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), support scientists in both countries in the field of systems biology.
Two of this year’s awards have gone to Austin Smith, of Cambridge University, and Hitoshi Niwa, RIKEN CDB, Kobe, for work in the Systems Biology of Pluripotent Stem Cells; and to Ken Haynes, Imperial College London, and Masaru Tomita, Keio University, for research in the Redox regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida glabrata.
The awards, from BBSRC to UK researchers and JST to Japanese researchers, fund travel between the two countries, networking opportunities and collaborative activities, such as workshops or early career research exchanges. The support is for up to four years and is intended to assist the groups to jointly produce high impact publications, new grant applications and gain reciprocal access to facilities.
Douglas Kell, BBSRC Chief Executive, said, “Modern bioscience demands international collaboration. By working together across international borders we can generate faster progress and higher quality science than we can alone. This scheme, and the close relationship between BBSRC and the JST, allows us to foster and build links between UK and Japanese researchers.”
A typical award would be up to £50,000 over a 4-year period to the UK partners for partnerships with one or more Japanese equivalents.
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.