On 1 October 2017, Kyoto University and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France, concluded an agreement to extend by another four years their memorandum of understanding for scientific collaboration, initiated in 2013.
The extension agreement was signed in Kyoto by KU President Juichi Yamagiwa and CNRS President Alain Fuchs, in the presence of University officials, including: Dr Kayo Inaba, executive vice-president for gender equality, international affairs, and public relations; Mr Shinji Asonuma, executive vice-president for industry-government-academia collaboration; and faculty from the Office of Society-Academia Collaboration for Innovation. President Fuchs was in town to attend the 2017 Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum, held 1-3 October.
The MoU provides a versatile and stable framework to increase scientific collaboration among research teams from both sides. Fruitful collaboration is already underway in chemistry, physics, and other fields, including the establishment of three international associate laboratories focused on chiral nanostructures for photonic applications, photo-active nanomaterials with cooperative and synergetic responses, and impacting materials with light and electric fields and watching real-time dynamics.
The 2017 agreement also continues a partnership on innovation and technology transfer, formalized in 2015 through the two-year placement of a CNRS staff member at Kyoto University. This first-of-its-kind partnership has been promoting the transfer of academic technologies to companies in France and Japan over the past two years, and its second phase will include a focus on stimulating public-private research collaboration.
Presidents Fuchs and Yamagiwa
After the signing ceremony
