Two COVID-related research grants worth £620,000 (USD $850,000) have just been awarded to the University of Aberdeen’s School of Law and its research partners of Kobe University’s Graduate School of Law and the British Institute for International and Comparative Law (BIICL). The funds from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will award the University of Aberdeen with approx. £425,000 and Kobe University with approx. ¥30,000,000. The grants run for three years, from December 2021 till February 2025.
The funds are in support of the JSPS and UKRI recent call for ‘Addressing COVID-19 Challenges with Japanese Researchers’. The research project proposes to examine how aspects of Japanese private law, commercial law, and intellectual property law might be reformed to better enable a rapid policy response in the face of an emerging pandemic. The research team includes 17 legal scholars from the University of Aberdeen, BIICL, Kobe University, Hokkaido University, Nihon University, and Tokai University, making this one of the broadest UK-Japan legal research projects in recent history.
Professor Roy Andrew PARTAIN will serve as the PI for all UK-based team members and Professor Takeshi MAEDA will serve as the PI for all Japan-based team members. Aberdeen’s team members include Professor Greg GORDON, Professor Abbe BROWN, and Dr Titilayo ADEBOLA. Dr Constantinos YIALLOURIDES joins via BIICL and Ms Hikari SAITO joins via Kobe University.
Kobe University’s research team include Professor Takeshi MAEDA, Professor Narufumi KADOMATSU, Professor Hiroshi TAKAHASHI, Professor Ichiro NAKAYAMA (of Hokkaido University), Professor Ryo SHIMANAMI, Assoc. Professor Akiko KATO (of Nihon University), Assoc. Professor Naoko MARIYAMA (of Tokai University), Hikari SAITO, Noori SE, and Takafumi SUZUKI. Professor Spyros MANIATIS, Professor Duncan FAIRGRIEVE, and Dr Constantinos YIALLOURIDES are on BIICL’s team of researchers.
