Since 2008, the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences (GSALS), the University of Tokyo (UT), has been carriying out the Japan-Asia SATOYAMA Education Initiative (JASEI), a master’s course integrating lectures, field practice and practical training, funded through the ‘Project to Develop Higher Education Environmental Leadership Training Programs’ of the Environmental Leadership Initiatives for Asian Sustainability (ELIAS), the Ministry of Environment of Japan.

JASEI aims to train and cultivate international environmental leaders, who are capable of reorganizing and restoring traditional regional resource management system, as typified by Satoyama in the case of Japan, in contemporary society, and sharing it with the international community as a new sound-material cycle and nature-harmonious society.

In order to achieve the above education objectives, JASEI has already established three education bases, namely, an academic base (UT), an international base (United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies/UNU-IAS), and a field base (Toyooka City, Hyogo Prefecture), and developed curricula to enhance the education synergy effect through collaboration among these bases.

In IPSI Collaborative Activity, JASEI intends to continue and strengthen the cooperation among three bases, specifically between UT and UNU through the activities such as providing lectures utilizing experts and resources of UNU, promoting students exchange utilizing international networks of UNU, and developing educational materials which could contribute to enhancing capacities for maintaining, rebuilding and revitalizing socio-ecological production landscapes, and to sharing the concept of Satoyama.