Strengthening academic, scientific and digital cooperation between Luxembourg and Japan: Stéphanie Obertin on a mission to Tokyo

As part of an official mission to Japan, the Minister for Research and Higher Education and Minister for Digitalisation, Stéphanie Obertin, visited Tokyo on 14, 15 and 18 July 2025. This mission was part of the deployment of national strategies for data, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies, launched last May as part of the government's drive to "Accelerate Digital Sovereignty 2030" in Luxembourg.

The aim of this mission was to strengthen scientific and institutional cooperation with key players in the Japanese research, higher education and innovation landscape, while promoting Luxembourg's approach based on sovereign infrastructures, robust data governance and responsible use of emerging technologies.

Strategic exchanges in Tokyo

On 14 July, the Luxembourg delegation, consisting of representatives from Luxembourg's public sector and public research, visited the prestigious RIKEN institute, and more specifically the Center for Brain Science (CBS), where Minister Obertin was welcomed by RIKEN President Makoto Gonokami and CBS Director Shigeo Okabe. The visit provided an opportunity to discuss the strong research collaboration between the CBS and the University of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) in the field of neurodegenerative diseases, and to find out more about the CBS's activities in this area.

In the afternoon, a meeting at the Institute of Science Tokyo gave rise to discussions on shared priorities in higher education, research and technological development. The day ended with a meeting with Atsushi Nonaka, Minister of State at the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), to discuss their respective public policies on research and higher education.

In the evening, the minister took part in an official dinner at the Luxembourg embassy, attended by leading figures from the Japanese scientific and technological world, including the President of the Japanese space agency JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), researchers from Fujitsu and IBM Research, and professors from leading universities. The event provided an opportunity to discuss issues relating to space, digitalisation and new technologies - strategic priorities shared by Luxembourg and Japan.

July 15 began with a visit to Sophia University, a long-standing partner of Luxembourg, where discussions focused on academic cooperation and student exchange programmes.

The day continued with a working meeting with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), an opportunity to present Luxembourg's research ecosystem and national funding instruments, in particular those of the National Research Fund (FNR), with a view to exploring avenues for collaboration.

Finally, the visit to the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) provided an opportunity to discuss key themes such as cybersecurity, quantum networks and space communication technologies, with a view to identifying synergies with research activities in these areas in Luxembourg.

Conclusion of the mission in Tokyo

After two days in Osaka, the delegation returned to Tokyo on 18 July for a concluding scientific moment.

In the morning, the Minister opened the Luxembourg-Japan Health Data Exchange Seminar at the University of Tokyo, co-organised with the Chamber of Commerce and NTT Data Luxembourg. The seminar brought together experts from both countries to discuss how to make the most of health data, highlighting Luxembourg initiatives such as Dataspace4Health and the Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS), as well as Japanese advances in interoperability and artificial intelligence. The shared objective is to lay the foundations for a secure, interoperable and ethical cross-border ecosystem for data exchange in the healthcare sector.

Afterwards, the minister was welcomed by President Teruo Fujii at the University of Tokyo for a courtesy visit, followed by a working meeting with various experts from the University of Tokyo's interdisciplinary information science programme. Discussions focused on data integration, interoperability between data spaces and the potential for cooperation between Luxembourg and Japan in this field.

In the afternoon, the Minister visited the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (RIKEN-IMS) in Yokohama, a long-standing partner of the LIH and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg. The visit provided an opportunity to take stock of the joint projects and current research activities of RIKEN-IMS in personalised medicine, immunology and biomedical data processing - priority areas in the national research and innovation strategy.

A bilateral partnership with high added value

This series of visits to Tokyo illustrates Luxembourg's desire to consolidate its scientific and technological partnerships with Japan. By increasing the number of exchanges between Japanese and Luxembourg institutions, the mission identified strong complementarities in key areas such as data exploitation, AI, cybersecurity and quantum technologies.

These advances are fully in line with the Luxembourg government's vision of making scientific innovation, emerging technologies and data exploitation a strategic lever for sovereignty, competitiveness and societal transformation.

Press release by  the Ministry of Research and Higher Education / Ministry of Digitalisation