Mr. Robert Morini, Consul of Science and Innovation, British Consulate-General visited IFReC on November 27, 2008.

After the greeting, Mr. Morini and Ms. Yoshida, Science and Innovation Section, explained the projects of British Consulate-General. Mr. Morini, who is in charge of science and technology projects in western Japan, visited some universities and research institutes in Kyoto, Kobe and Osaka to promote collaboration between laboratories or research institutes in Japan and UK.

Mr. Morini had an interest in activities of IFReC where English speaking environment is provided including administrative office by looking at our English website pages and made this time’s visit.

Afterwards, Prof. Shizuo Akira, Director of IFReC, explained organization and researches of IFReC and present situation about acceptance of British researchers. Mr. Morini and IFReC staffs also discussed actively about the difficulties of foreign researchers when they do research in Japan and agreed that cares for their lives including researcher's family are very important, because languages and lifestyle are very different depending on each country.

Mr. Morini emphasized that there are excellent research institutes in UK although present immunology researches are oriented in Japan and USA. It is expected that the cooperation between British Consulate-General and IFReC would be developed in the future in order to encourage UK-Japan research exchanges through holding events and seminars collaborated with various funding organizations.