GRIPS’ project “The Transferability of East Asian Development Strategies and State Building” (Project leader: Professor Keijiro Otsuka) was selected as a Global COE.

The aims of establishing a Global COE at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) are to expand on the major findings made in its research into “Asian Development Experience and Its Transferability” under the 21st Century COE program and-through the integration of research, education, policy experiments and implementation, and outreach-to emerge as a world-leading institute for the education and research of development policy.

The 21st Century COE project at GRIPS elucidated the importance of government initiatives for industrial development, through comparative analyses of the relations between state-initiated industrial policies and market failure in East Asia and Africa. As a Global COE, GRIPS seeks to build on these achievements in two major aspects. First, the project will identify the basic capacity needed by the government to actively create and nurture industries. Second, policy experiments will be conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of state-initiated industrial promotion policies. Through these research activities, the project will elucidate the state’s role in development policy from all conceivable angles.

Global COE Program:
The Global COE Program provides funding support for establishing education and research centers that perform at the apex of global excellence to elevate the international competitiveness of the Japanese universities. The program strengthens and enhances the education and research functions of graduate schools so as to foster highly creative young researchers who will go on to become world leaders in their respective fields. This it does by allowing them to experience and conduct research of the highest world standard.

This year’s competition has awarded 14 grants in the subsection of social science.