Science and Technology

• (1) The 22nd Japan-Germany Joint Committee on Cooperation in Science and Technology was held in Bonn from 30 November to 1 December 2016.
• (2) The committee was co-chaired by H.E. Mr. Takeshi NAKANE, Ambassador for Science and Technology Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and by Dr. Georg Schutte, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany. On the second day, the co-chairmanship on the German side was left to Mr. Frithjof Maennel, Deputy Director General of the International Cooperation in Education and Research, BMBF.
  In the presence of Ms. Yuko HARAYAMA, Member of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) of the Cabinet Office, the Japanese delegation at the meeting was composed of the Cabinet Office (CAO), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and others. The German delegation was composed of the officials from BMBF, German Research Foundation (DFG), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Humboldt Foundation (AvH), Max Planck Society (MPG), Fraunhofer Society (FhG), Leibniz Association (WGL), German Aerospace Center (DLR) and others.

During this joint committee, two delegations exchanged the recent status of science, technology and innovation policy in both countries. In particular, they shared the information on attempts to realize ‘Society 5.0’ advocated by Japan and ‘Industry 4.0’ by Germany, and confirmed the significance of cooperation between two countries for research on battery technology, cluster cooperation, clean energy and service robots. In terms of foresight, they agreed to advance discussion on establishing concrete cooperative programs in the field of autonomic driving and service robots. Furthermore, the delegations presented collaborations among related organizations in two countries to further exchange opinion.