Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), or Gakushin for short, is an independent administrative institution, established by way of a national law for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields of the natural and social sciences and the humanities. JSPS plays a pivotal role in the administration of a wide spectrum of Japan's scientific and academic programs. While working within the broad framework of government policies established to promote scientific advancement, JSPS carries out its programs in a manner flexible to the needs of the participating scientists.
JSPS was founded in 1932 as a non-profit foundation through an endowment granted by Emperor Showa. JSPS became a quasi-governmental organization in 1967 under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Monbusho), and since 2001 under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho). Over this 70-year period, JSPS has worked continuously to develop and implement a far-reaching array of domestic and international scientific programs. On October 1, 2003, JSPS entered a new phase with its conversion to an independent administrative institution, as which it will strive to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of its management so as to improve the quality of the services it offers to individual researchers, universities, and research institutes. JSPS's operation is supported in large part by annual subsidies from the Japanese Government.
Its main functions are:
- To foster young researchers,
- To promote international scientific cooperation,
- To award Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research,
- To support scientific cooperation between the academic community and industry, and
- To collect and distribute information on scientific research activities.
Indian JSPS Alumni Association (IJAA)
Indian JSPS Alumni Association (IJAA) launched in 2006 with an aim to boost India-Japan S&T activities, Enriching Indian students' information about Japanese Universities and courses for inspiring them to take courses in Japan and for strengthening cultural exchanges. Starting with a humble beginning, currently, IJAA has more than 400 members well spread all over India, having a presence in almost all leading institutions in very good and influential positions.
IJAA Organized India-Japan International Science seminars in different parts of India to give awareness to Indian students regarding Japanese institutions and its activities to boost collaboration in the science field between India-Japan from 2010 onwards with the support from JSPS, Japan; MEXT, Japan and DST, India in different cities in India. 2010(New Delhi–125participants),2011(Thiruvananthapuram- About 250 participants), 2012 (Nagpur- About 300 Participants), 2013 (Bhubaneswar- About 350 Participants) 2014 (Chennai- About 300 Participants), 2015 (Varanasi – About 450 Participants: Hon. State Minister of MEXT, Mr. Motoyuko Fuji Inaugurated the seminar), 2016 (Mysore – About 650 Participants), 2017 (Goa – About 350 Participants), 2018 (Santi Niketan – About 450 Participants), 2019 (New Delhi -500 Participants). During our 10 th India-Japan S&T seminar, JSPS President Prof. Susumu Satomi attended, showing appreciation of JSPS towards IJAA’s activities. To attend our seminars, numerous well-reputed Japanese scientists visited various parts of India, and after the close interactions with the students of India, they acknowledged and appreciated the real potential of India in the field of S&T.
During these seminars, we always organized Japanese University booths and presentations from Japanese University representatives to Indian students who attended the seminars from different parts of India, which allowed to increase the awareness about the Japanese Universities among Indian Students all over India. Moreover, this helped IJAA start “Friends of Japan Clubs, all over India under IJAA members in their institutes, currently having more than 5000 active members and conducting various programs from time to time.
IJAA also organized S&T seminar in Tokyo to mark the 60 th year of diplomatic relations between Japan and India with support from JSPS, Japan, and the Embassy of India, Tokyo. Keynote talks delivered by Hon. Scientific Advisor to Prime Minister of India Dr. Chidambaram, Nobel Laureate Dr. Makoto Kobyashi, and Prof. Sumio Ijima.
Under the Bridge Fellowship program, more than 20 Indian JSPS fellows revisited various Japanese institutions, which rejuvenated their tie-ups with the Professors in the institutes resulted in winning various India-Japan S&T projects.
Since the inception of IJAA in 2006, IJAA has been actively working to enhance India-Japan S&T activities and has become very successful in the initiatives.
Website : www.indianjspsalumni.org
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, the sixth member of the IIT fraternity, was established in 1994. The academic programme of IIT Guwahati commenced in 1995. At present the Institute has eleven departments, seven inter-disciplinary academic centres and five schools covering all the major engineering , science, healthcare, management and humanities disciplines, offering B.Tech., B.Des., M.A., M.Des., M.Tech., M.Sc., MBA and Ph.D. programmes. Within a short period of time, IIT Guwahati has been able to build up world class infrastructure for carrying out advanced research and has been equipped with state-of-the-art scientific and engineering instruments. Besides its laurels in teaching and research, IIT Guwahati has been able to fulfil the aspirations of people of the North East region to a great extent since its inception in 1994.
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati's campus is on a sprawling 285 hectares plot of land on the north bank of the river Brahmaputra around 20 kms from the heart of the city. With the majestic Brahmaputra on one side, and with hills and vast open spaces on others, the campus provides an ideal setting for learning.
IIT Guwahati is the only academic institution in India that occupied a place among the top 100 world universities – under 50 years of age – ranked by the London-based Times Higher Education (THE) in the year 2014 and continues to maintain its superior position even today in various International Rankings. IIT Guwahati gained rank 32 globally in the ‘Research Citations per Faculty’ category and overall 364 rank in the QS World University Rankings 2024 released recently. IIT Guwahati has retained the 7th position among the best engineering institutions of the country in the ‘India Rankings 2023’ declared by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union Ministry of Education. IIT Guwahati has been also ranked 2nd in the ‘Swachhata Ranking’ conducted by the Govt. of India. IIT Guwahati has been ranked as the top-ranked University in 2019 for IT developers by HackerRank in the Asia-Pacific region. Also, IIT Guwahati ranks 6th globally in Sustainable Development Goal 7 (Affordable and clean energy) of the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023.
Website : https://www.iitg.ac.in/