The GCOE’s Achievements and Thanks!!

Emiko OCHIAI, Program Leader

The GCOE will soon be approaching completion. Looking back on these five years activities, if asked what is the greatest result, without doubt it is the creation of a global network. Together with the researchers from around the world who have joined this network, we have accumulated a track record of international collaboration in both research and education. In the beginning we started out with overseas partners from 8 universities, and the network has extended to include researchers from 33 universities and research institutions; with 16 centers in Asia, 12 in Europe, 4 in North America, and 1 in Oceania. With these partners we established the Research Consortium for the Intimate and the Public in 2011, and in 2012 we set up the Asian Research Center for the Intimate and Public Spheres as its office within Kyoto University Graduate School of Letters.

The academic achievements of the GCOE have been published in many papers and publications, but in 2012 we started publication of the outcome series in Japanese and English. The English series is The Intimate and the Public in Asian and Global Perspectives (16 volumes, scheduled to be published by Brill http://www.brill.com/publications/intimate-and-public-asian-and-global-perspectives). The Japanese series is henyou suru shinmitsuken/koukyouken (‘Transformations of Intimate and Public Spheres’, 20 volumes, scheduled to be published by Kyoto University Press). All the volumes are the result of international collaborative research on topics such as ‘Intimate work’, ‘The East Asian Labor Market’, ‘International Migration’, ‘Care Regimes’, ‘Images of Intimacy in Eastern and Western Art’, and ‘Comparative Family Law in Asia’. In addition, we are also scheduled to publish in English all 7 volumes of the results of the Asian Families and Intimacy joint research on intimacy in 9 Asian societies.

In human resources development, through collaboration with our overseas partners, we can claim to have accomplished the goal of establishing the Asian ERASMUS Pilot Program, a framework for international collaborative education with ongoing student and teaching staff exchange built in. For the GCOE Program Members, the greatest pleasure has been seeing the development of friendship across international borders and the deepening of mutual understanding among Asian regions and between Asia and other regions through this program. From now on, we will continue international collaborative education, including the well-established Next-Generation Global Workshop. Fortunately, we also have gained funding for this. The aim of the GCOE is to continue to expand these activities even after the end of the program.

Finally, on behalf of the GCOE Program Members, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the overseas partners who have worked together with us, and all those inside and outside of Japan who have supported our GCOE activities in various ways. I am looking forward eagerly to seeing the seeds planted by their international experience at the GCOE in the students from various countries who have participated in our activities, and the young colleagues who have already moved on, blossoming and bearing fruit.