Daiwa Foundation funds projects ranging from a taiko performance at the 50th Japan Week in Manchester to an analysis of multispectral images of asteroid samples

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation (www.dajf.org.uk) has published details of its Small Grants and Awards awarded to support a total of 32 UK-Japan projects in its latest funding round: March 2025.

A Daiwa Foundation Small Grant will support the travel of 35 pupils and 4 teaching staff from Gosforth Academy, Newcastle, to a Tokyo school, where they will work collaboratively with Japanese pupils whilst engaging in a range of activities related to science, technology, geography, entrepreneurship, and culture in multiple settings.

Surge Forward Music & Arts have received a grant for travel to the UK by Suzumeno Tears, a Tokyo-based musical duo known for their innovative blend of Japanese min’yō with Balkan, Siberian, and other global folk influences. They will perform at SOAS, University of London; The Edge in Birmingham; and at a local village hall in Shropshire and will also deliver a workshop at a local primary school in Clun, Shropshire. Their trip will feature in an upcoming autobiographical documentary.

Rebecca Hill from Gallery Oldham will make an eight-day research visit to Nagoya, Osaka, and Kagoshima in order to build on historical ties between Oldham and Japan, which began with the visit to Oldham by three Satsuma Students in 1865 to learn more about cotton spinning. She will also consolidate and develop a network of contacts ahead of a 2027-8 exhibition featuring Oldham and Japan’s shared history of cultural and industrial links.

Dr Roger Stabbins, a postdoctoral researcher at the National History Museum, will spend two weeks in Japan collaborating with Professor Shingo Kameda of Rikkyo University on analysing the latter’s multispectral images of asteroid Bennus samples, taken in 2024, in order to explore their chemical composition. They will then prepare a manuscript based on their findings.

A Daiwa Foundation Small Grant will also support the travel of fifteen taiko drummers from Sada Susa Daiko to participate in the 50th Japan Week, organised by the International Friendship Foundation and Manchester City Council, by providing performances, workshops, and school visits in early September. The Japan Week will run from 4 to 9 September 2025.

Other projects have been granted Daiwa Foundation Awards based on their potential to further institutional UK-Japan collaboration. In this Year of Wales and Japan 2025, members of the Aloud Charity will undertake a cultural exchange trip to Kyushu, where they will collaborate with schools in Oita and Kitakyushu to create a song to be sung in both Japanese and Welsh, perform concerts, and provide a series of workshops with the schools.

Another Daiwa Foundation Award will support continued collaboration between the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum (OBGA) and the Botanic Gardens of Toyama (BGT), who hope to build upon their previous success in repatriating endangered Prunus cultivars to Japan, some of which have become extinct, and to establish a second phase of repatriation.

The Daiwa Foundation will provide an award to support Scottish Opera’s new partnership with Japanese music and theatre producers, KAJIMOTO, on a new opera called The Great Wave by composer Dai Fujikura and Scottish librettist Harry Ross, premiering in Scotland in February 2026. It celebrates the life of renowned Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai and his daughter Ōi in a truly Scottish-Japanese collaboration with KAJIMOTO’s creative producers and directors.

The full list of projects which received funding in the March 2025 round can be viewed here.

 

Background information:

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation is a UK charity, established in 1988 with a generous benefaction from Daiwa Securities Co Ltd. The Foundation’s purpose is to support closer links between Great Britain and Japan. It does this by awarding grants and scholarships in all fields of activity; by supporting educational exchanges and other bilateral initiatives between British and Japanese academics and students; and by organising a year-round events programme at Daiwa Foundation Japan House in London to increase understanding of Japan in the UK. The Foundation is represented in Japan by its Tokyo office. Further information about the Foundation and its activities is available at www.dajf.org.uk.

Press Enquiries

Susan Meehan
Grants and Scholarships Officer
Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
13/14 Cornwall Terrace
London NW1 4QP TEL: 020 7486 4348   Email: grants@dajf.org.uk