CEPS and the Japan Foundation (JF) Partnership

---

In April 2009, CEPS Chief Investigator, Professor William Tow, of the Department of International Relations (ANU), and Professor Rikki Kersten, of the Department of Political and Social Change (ANU), were awarded a grant from the Japan Foundation for their project entitled ‘New Approaches to Human Security in the Asia-Pacific’.

This three-year project investigates the extent to which three key Asia-Pacific powers (Australia, China and Japan) can integrate viable human security approaches into their national security planning. This project is undertaken by teams of researchers from the University of Tokyo, the Osaka School of International Public Policy at Osaka University, and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR). Two areas of particular focus for research are (1) the Korean peninsula (with particular emphasis on North Korea), and (2) the so-called ‘arc of crises’ that encompasses parts of Indonesia, most of Melanesia and other geographic locales in the wider Pacific.

The project will feature collaboration with human security practitioners from Australia, Japan and China and will focus on how more effective policy formulation in human security can be derived and implemented in the Asia-Pacific region. In the second and third years of the project, collaboration with organisations such as the Asia-Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence (based in Australia) and the National Institute of Defense Studies based in Japan is envisaged to further enhance the project's research capacity. The end-of-project conference, to be held in Beijing in 2012, will bring together project researchers, human security practitioners, policy-makers and international experts in order to maximise dissemination of results, enhance human security networks and consolidate relevant and innovative policy recommendations.

Workshop Reports

The first workshop of the ‘New Approaches to Human Security in the Asia-Pacific’ project will be convened on 22 – 23 October 2009 at the Osaka School of International Public Policy in Osaka, Japan.

This workshop will assess analysis that has been performed on open-source literature and undertaken by scholars at the ANU, Osaka University and the CICIR. During the workshop, principal investigators and research associates on the project, in collaboration with other project participants, will synthesise the analysis data into preliminary research findings. The workshop discussions will entail case study analyses and cross-comparison interpretations of research results. This will provide a basis for additional research to be undertaken by the collaborative partners throughout the second and final years of the project.

top