Professor Claire O’Malley, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global), visited Japan to strengthen further our research partnerships, including in the areas of clean energy and hydrogen, biotech, agritech and the transformative humanities.
In her role as the UK Co-Chair of the UK-Japan RENKEI Consortium - a network of eleven research-intensive universities - Professor O'Malley also co-chaired the RENKEI Steering Committee and headed a delegation of Durham University researchers who took part in a week-long workshop to forge new, impactful collaborations with their Japanese counterparts.
During Professor O’Malley‘s visit to Kyushu University, she met with researchers who are working with Durham counterparts on a wide range of areas, including quantum, supply chain management of critical resources, climate change and programmable biological matter.
With Japan’s recent association to Horizon Europe, Professor O’Malley met with Kyushu’s Faculty of Agriculture who are working with our researchers on a recently approved Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Staff Exchange project, worth £1.7m. The FARMAR project, led by Dr Amir Atapour-Abarghouei from our Department of Computer Science, aims to bring together traditional farming knowledge and modern AI and robotics.
Given Durham and Kyushu’s research strengths in clean energy and hydrogen, Professor O’Malley also shared our experience of leading a new £21m UK National Clean Maritime Research Hub, to decarbonise the UK maritime sector, in her discussions with the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research. In addition to co-chairing the UK-Japan RENKEI Steering Committee at Tohoku University, Professor O’Malley met with Tohoku’s International Research Institute of Disaster Science who are working with Durham’s Institute for Hazard, Risk and Resilience to strengthen the research capacity of early career researchers on the impacts of shocks and disasters on biodiversity, water, food and energy.
In 2021 we joined RENKEI, the Japan-UK Research and Education Network for Knowledge Economy Initiatives. This consortium comprising eleven UK and Japanese universities has been at the forefront of strengthening UK-Japanese research collaborations.
Speaking alongside Japanese Vice-Minister for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hiroshi Masuko, British Ambassador Julia Longbottom, British Council Japan Country Director Jim Booth, and Japanese RENKEI co-chair Professor Tatsuya Sato (Ritsumeikan University), Professor O’Malley reiterated Durham’s commitment to strengthen further our research footprint in Japan.
During Professor O’Malley’s visit to Japan, a delegation of Durham researchers also took part in RENKEI workshops at Sophia University and Tohoku University to develop research collaborations in the areas of aerospace, space law and Arctic research.
The Durham delegation included:
Our partnership with Japan is one of our most enduring, dating back over 160 years to when the first Japanese students arrived in Durham. Over the last five years, researchers across all four of our faculties collaborated with colleagues at around 200 institutions in Japan to produce over 600 joint publications.
Our collaborations with Japanese counterparts span a wide range of disciplines to address global challenges. This includes climate change and energy, health, emerging technologies and space and satellite technologies.
We have collaborated on work around the emerging deep-sea mining industry and the Health Interventions in Volcanic Eruptions (HIVE) project, which aims to inform better health interventions in humanitarian crises by researching the effectiveness of respiratory protection worn by people during volcanic eruptions.
Durham-Japan collaborations have conducted cutting-edge research to improve lives across the world, in fields such as emerging technologies, disaster prevention, sea-level change, and fertility science. Professor Chris Done (Physics) is one of the scientists leading the XRISM mission – the next generation X-ray astronomy spacecraft - a collaboration between the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and NASA, with significant participation from the European Space Agency.
Museums and collections are also a key part of our collaboration with Japan. In April 2026, Rachel Barclay, Deputy Head of our Museums, Galleries and Exhibitions, was presented with the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation by the Japanese Ambassador. The award celebrated Rachel’s achievement in promoting mutual understanding between Japan and the UK through Japanese art.
Durham researchers also actively engage with industry partners, including Japanese multinationals based in the North East of England.
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