Japanese Corporate Consortium Funds Chair At University Of Alaska

In an elegantly staged ceremony in Tokyo last November, representatives from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and from Japan's Committee for Energy Policy Promotion (CEPP) made history. Seated at a table overflowing with flowers and festooned with the flags of Japan and the United States, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, director of the university's Geophysical Institute, and Gaishi Hiraiwa, chairman of CEPP and of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., signed English and Japanese versions of an agreement establishing the Wadati Faculty Chair at Alaska. The chair honors Kyoo Wadati, a pioneering Japanese geophysicist who discovered earthquakes at depths greater than 300 kilometers. It will sponsor the work of a junior and senior professor, both of whom will be known as Wadati Professors. The chair will be funded by a $1.2 million gift from 11 members of CEPP, a consortium of 80 Japanese energy-related corporations, over a five-year period. What makes the arrangement so significant is that, while Japanese companies have endowed chairs in the U.S. at institutions like the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, this is the first such gift to underwrite environmental research--focusing on global warming and environmental change. The collaboration was the brainchild of Akasofu, a Japanese-born naturalized American, though it all happened quite serendipitously. As director of the Geophysical Institute, which specializes in the study of arctic geophysical phenomena, Akasofu is involved in cooperative work with many Japanese universities and travels to Japan frequently. On one 1987 trip, he was introduced to officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. "They were very aware they were responsible for pumping carbon dioxide into the air," explains Akasofu. "There's lot of controversy around this issue, and about how much carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to the greenhouse effect. But the one thing scientists do agree on is that if global warming is in progress, it would show up first and more severely at the high latitudes in the arctic," which provides a pristine laboratory to measure climatic changes. Since Alaska is the only U.S. university in the arctic, Akasofu suggested to executives at Tokyo Electric that the company consider a joint venture with the Geophysical Institute to explore the issue. Tokyo Electric officials were enthusiastic, but they didn't feel they could take the sole initiative. So they lobbied other corporations that belonged to CEPP to help fund this project. Eventually, they enlisted the cooperation of 10 other firms--Chubu Electric Power Co. Inc., Electric Power Development Co. Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Osaka Gas Co. Ltd., the Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd., the Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc., Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., and Toyota Motor Corp. "The CEPP was formed to deal with energy problems by advising our government on energy policy, and by exploring ways to halt the environmental degradation that jeopardizes the habitability of the planet," says Ryohei Kondo, deputy manager of CEPP in Tokyo. "We also want to contribute something to the United States because so many Japanese companies do business there. So the opportunity to fund [the university's] research into the causes of man-made global changes seemed to be an ideal way to do both." While Tokyo Electric was enlisting the support of its fellow CEPP members, Akasofu and his colleagues at the Geophysical Institute, which was established in 1949 through an act of Congress, were determining the best ways to make use of the Japanese funds. There are 43 faculty members at the Alaska campus who are directly involved in global change research; their disciplines range from the biological and physical to the social sciences. "But we have a few gaps in our expertise," says Gunter Weller, a professor of geophysics at the university and deputy director of the Geophysical Institute. "We identified six or seven positions we'd like to have to round out our expertise." The Japanese expressed a willingness to fund two of these positions. The senior professorship will go to a climatologist with computer modeling experience, while the junior position will be filled by a seismologist, in honor of Wadati. According to Weller, top-notch scientists from around the world have applied for these slots, which he expects to fill in the next few weeks. After lengthy negotiations, a deal was struck, enabling the Japanese to fund the positions. "Japan's tax structure is different from ours," explains Akasofu. "If they [Japanese corporations] donate money, it is not tax-deductible. So they had to justify this kind of expenditure, which is why it took time to reach an accord. "What these new faculty members will do is help us to integrate all the research being done on global warming at [the university]. What's particularly important is that we now will be able to use the tremendous volume of data generated by our scientists, who have the advantage of working in the arctic region, and plug all of it into computer models." What was finally agreed upon was that each company would contribute $22,000 per year (for a total of $242,000), for five years, from September 1991 to August 1996. In exchange, the Geophysical Institute will send yearly progress reports to CEPP and to the participating corporations to keep them abreast of the status of the research. At the end of the five years, CEPP will appoint a panel to determine whether to continue their financial contribution. "Whether we do anything further or fund research at other universities really depends upon the outcome of this project," says CEPP's Kondo, who was instrumental in eliciting corporate support in Japan. "But we are hopeful this will be the start of a long-term cooperative arrangement. After all, the solution to global change problems is an issue common to all humankind." Linda Marsa is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

Japanese Corporate Consortium Funds Chair At University Of Alaska

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of