LIAISON OFFICE NEWSLETTER
October 20th, 2002 No.5

In September the Liaison Office celebrated its first year operation

Liaison Office receives guests from JSPS

On September 25, the Director of Research Cooperation Division, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Ms. Yuko Furukawa and Section Chief, Cooperative Program Section, Research Cooperation Division, JSPS, Mr. Kazunori Higuchi visited the Tohoku University Liaison Office.  Prof. Alexander Vasil’ev, Head of Low Temperature Physics Department, showed them the Liaison Office and took them on a tour of the MSU campus.  Prof. Vasil’ev introduced an outline of the work of Low Temperature Physics Department and its laboratories to them. The purpose of their visit to Moscow State University was to investigate the exchange situation of Tohoku University and Moscow State University as a notable example of Japan-Russia joint research to make it a reference at the time of promoting the scientific exchange with Russia in the future. 

The beginning of collaboration of two Tohoku University Liaison Offices in Russia

On September 28 the Moscow Liaison office was visited by the delegation of CNEAS staff, consisting of the members of Tohoku University Administration and the scientists working in the Siberian Liaison Office.

The Center for Northeast Asian Studies (CNEAS) was established by Tohoku University in 1996. Its mission is to carry out regional studies in Northeast Asia, including East Asia, North Asia and Japan. Within the operation of CNEAS in 1998 was established the Siberia Liaison Office in Novosibirsk (Russia) as the first overseas liaison office of Tohoku University. Its task is to promote the exchange of scientific information between Tohoku University and 75 institutes of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science and the formation of joint research projects.

In Moscow Liaison Office the delegation was met by Prof. Anatoly Vedyayev, the members of the Joint Advisory Council of the Liaison Office from the Russian party, and Ms. Vasilieva. The CNEAS delegation was led by Director of the Administrative division of Tohoku University Mr. Masayoshi Sato. Mr. Sato and the other delegates explained to Prof. Vedyayev the organization of the Siberian Liaison Office and Prof. Vedyayev in his turn talked about the operation of the Liaison Office in Moscow. During the meeting the parties came to the conclusion that there should be organized a close collaboration between the two Liaison Offices of Tohoku University in Russia. This problem has been already discussed during the visit to Moscow of Tohoku University delegation led by President Abe in June 2002. Then within the delegation came two members of CNEAS: Prof. Motoyuki Sato and Dr. Masachika Shiotani. They talked about the possibility of collaboration between the offices, and this was the first time when CNEAS staff visited the MSU office on their way from Novosibirsk back to Sendai.

The CNEAS delegation had a possibility not only to visit the Liaison Office in Cryogenic campus, but also to acquaint with the MSU main building. They were shown the lecture-rooms, the main hall for more than 1000 seats, where the meetings of the Scientific Council of MSU are held, and the Cultural center of MSU, where that day was on a concert in Japanese, organized with the help of students and lecturers from Japan.
Later the delegation met with the Head of Department of Japanese Philology of Institute of Asian and African Studies Prof. Evgeny Maevskii. This meeting was specially organized for the CNEAS staff to make their visit to the Moscow Liaison Office not only official but also interesting and useful.

Institute of Asian and African Studies was first opened in 1956 and now is the leading Oriental Studies institution in Russia. The Institute teaches more than 40 languages of Asian and African countries. The staff number is 250, including 30 professors and 70 associate professors holding Doctor of Science and PhD degrees. Most of them are world recognized for their fundamental research in the area of Oriental studies and authoring of vocabularies, translations from Japanese, Chinese, Sanscrit, Arabic, Persian and other Asian and African languages.

The visit to the Institute of Asian and African Studies was also important for the operation of the Liaison Office, because it was the first step to extend cooperation between MSU and Tohoku University to other fields except Physics and Material Sciences. It became the first experience of collaboration in the field of culture, which is also enumerated in the Agreement on collaboration of two universities.

Practical results of collaboration of two universities

One of the examples of the existing joint projects between Tohoku University and MSU is collaboration of the laboratory of Prof. Alexander Vasil'ev in Low-Temperature Physics department of Faculty of Physics and the laboratory of Prof. Toshiyuki Takagi in the Institute of Fluid Science. Prof. Vasil'ev and Prof. Takagi carried out a number of experiments and investigated the characteristics of new ferromagnetic shape memory alloys. They started their collaboration in 1992 and by now they have published in co-authorship more then 20 articles in the leading international physical journals. Their latest joint review paper is devoted to the problem of shape memory ferromagnets and is submitted for publication to leading Russian review magazine - Advances in Physical Sciences.
In Tohoku University Prof. Alexander Vasil'ev have collaboration also with the Institute of Material Research and School of Engineering. From January to April 2003 Prof. Vasil'ev will stay in Tohoku University as visiting professor. This time he plans to continue studies of new advanced materials in collaboration with Prof. Toshiyuki Takagi.
In 1998 Prof. Alexander Vasil'ev arranged for the visit to the laboratory of Prof. Takagi of his graduate Mr. Vladimir Khovailo. During his stay in the Institute of Fluid Science Mr. Khovailo investigated with the other researchers of the laboratory the characteristics of shape memory ferromagnets and published in co-authorship several articles in various physical journals. In 2002 Mr. Khovailo defended his thesis, called "Shape memory ferromagnets" and got a PhD degree both in Japan and in Russia.

Review of the Liaison Office first year operation

Recently Tohoku University Liaison Office in Moscow State University celebrated the completion of its first year operation. It was established on September 20 as the Liaison Office of the Institute of Fluid Science at the Faculty of Physics of MSU. Beginning its work from institute-to-institute level, the Liaison Office then raised to university-to-university level.
During this year the Liaison Office was visited by more then 60 guests, including President of Tohoku University Prof. Abe and President of MSU Prof. Sadovnichii, members of several governmental scientific societies and prominent scientists from 20 universities and institutes from 8 countries (Japan, Russia, USA, Germany, India, China, United Kingdom and Italy).
The establishment of cooperation between two universities bears not only principal character, but also has practical appliance. In co-authorship of the scientists of Institute of Fluid Science and Faculty of Physics were published many articles in the leading physical journals. In October 2002 two students from the Faculty of Physics went to Sendai to take part in Tohoku University Junior Year Program in English.
The Liaison Office plans to expand its operation to the other faculties of MSU except the Faculty of Physics and to launch new joint projects in the spheres of both science and culture.

Edited by Vera Vasil'eva


URL addresses concerning the contents of this newsletter:
http://www.tohoku.ac.jp/index-e.html
http://www.cneas.tohoku.ac.jp/index_e.html
http://www.ifs.tohoku.ac.jp/