1 Historic links between the UK and Japan The links between UK universities and Japan go back a very long way, to 1863 – when the first Japanese travelled abroad for a university education and came to UCL. Ever since that time the UK has maintained strong collaborative links with Japan. The London research centre of the Eisai Pharmaceutical Company is located in the heart of the UCL campus. At the time of its establishment in 1993, it was the largest single Japanese investment in a British university.
SLIDE: the Japan monument at UCL In a quiet courtyard at the heart of UCL stands an austere, polished, black granite monument. On it are engraved the names of former Japanese students, all now long dead. But this imposing stone block is no gloomy memorial; it celebrates the fact that in the 1860s UCL welcomed a number of Japanese men as students, first from the Choshu clan, and then from the Satsuma clan, and it is these men whose names are engraved on the monument. Founded in 1826, UCL was from the start avowedly modernizing, and established the modern university curriculum. It was entirely apt therefore that these Japanese pioneers should have come to UCL, for they were seeking to embrace and understand modernity in all its forms, in order to enrich their homeland. SLIDE: The first Japanese students It was in 1863, that five Japanese men, all noblemen of the Choshu clan arrived in London, and enrolled to study Chemistry at UCL, thus marking the first formal contact between UCL and Japan. These were the very first Japanese to study in any university outside Japan. Being the ‘first’ is always noteworthy, but given the turbulent history of Japan at this period, their story is even more interesting. Mid-19th century Japan was a feudal state, functioning under a policy of political and cultural isolation termed sakoku (literally ‘closed country’) that had been established as far back as 1639. The policy included a prohibition on the study of foreign books, and any attempt to