The education ministry said Tuesday that eight national and private universities have applied for grants from the government's ¥10 trillion university fund, aimed at promoting world-class research projects, in the second-round selection process.
The applications for the grants under Japan's Universities for International Research Excellence program will be screened from July through the winter. Selected universities are expected to begin receiving the grants by next March.
The eight universities are the University of Osaka, Kyoto University, Waseda University, the University of Tokyo, Kyushu University, the Institute of Science Tokyo, the University of Tsukuba and Nagoya University. Friday was the deadline for submitting applications in the second round.
All eight had filed applications in the first-round selection process, in which Tohoku University was chosen as the first recipient of the grants last November. Tokyo University of Science took part in the first round, but did not submit an application in the second round.
The ministry is set to select a few schools as recipients under the program, which provides selected universities with grants for up to 25 years. Tohoku University was given about ¥15.4 billion in February this year as its grant for the first year.
For the second-round screening, the ministry set up a new advisory board of 11 experts, including Andrew Hamilton, honorary president of New York University.
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