Manchester twins with Tokyo to offer joint research experience

Our Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, are pleased to announce the launch of a dual award PhD programme which complements the wider agreement on academic cooperation between our two institutions.

Postgraduate researchers will be jointly selected and spend time in Manchester and Tokyo, benefiting from the expertise, facilities and infrastructure of two globally renowned institutions. The wider partnership activity will also see our University hosting postgraduate researchers from the University of Tokyo as part of the SPRING GX Programme.

Successful applicants to the programme will split their time between Manchester and Tokyo according to the project requirements as determined by the supervisors and the Joint Programme Board. The students will be awarded a degree from both institutions, based on a single research experience managed cooperatively by both institutions.

For the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Japan’s leading University, this represents their second dual award doctoral programme and the first with a UK partner. For The University of Manchester, this follows the highly successful launch of similar dual and joint PhD programmes with Tsinghua University, University of Melbourne, Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and the University of Chile. As a core component of its international strategy, our University is entering into a small number of dual award PhD programmes with prestigious partner institutions around the world.

The dual award PhD programme was formally announced during a University of Manchester delegation visit to the University of Tokyo in April. The visit provided the opportunity for colleagues from the Faculty of Science and Engineering to engage with leading researchers from the University of Tokyo with a view to identifying opportunities for future collaboration. The UK Government has recently launched the International Science Partnerships Fund, for which Japan is a priority partner country, and will provide a funding mechanism to support UK-Japan collaboration.

The Dean of the School of Science, University of Tokyo, Professor Shinichi Ohkoshi, said: “The University of Manchester is one of the UK's leading universities conducting world-class research, and it also has a global reputation for the strategic activities for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For the University of Tokyo, collaboration with such a university will be a great privilege from the viewpoints of both research and education. The School of Science, the University of Tokyo is very positive about launching the dual-degree program with The University of Manchester and is planning to prepare a scholarship for students participating in the programme.”

Professor Stephen Flint, our Associate Vice-President for Internationalisation, added: “We are delighted to be launching this dual award PhD programme with the Graduate School of Science of the world famous University of Tokyo. In our experience, the co-supervision and co-responsibility for PhD students is a highly effective way of growing long-term research collaborations between academic colleagues and leads on to deeper levels of institutional partnership. The graduates from this programme will be highly trained, highly employable global citizens, at home in both Japan and the United Kingdom.”

The first PhD candidate for the new scheme has already been selected with lead supervision for the project being provided by Professor Shinichi Ohkoshi of the University of Tokyo and Professor Nicholas Chilton from our University.

The new programme represents a significant development in consolidating the research links between our respective institutions. Data on co-authorship demonstrates that there is already a significant level of engagement between research groups and the new programme will support our aspirations to cement these links.

Image: The University of Tokyo's main auditorium. It is a famous landmark of the university and a registered cultural heritage building.