Japanese

HOPE Project (2004-2014)
by Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University

1, Project Title
International Training Program for Young Researchers:
Primate Origins of Human Evolution (HOPE)

2. Project Outline
HOPE is an anagram of the "Primate Origins of Human Evolution". HOPE was a core-to-core program financially supported by JSPS since March 2004. The financial support is extended for another 5 years from April 2009 till March 2014 under the program called ITP (International Training Program).
 Under the new program of ITP-HOPE, we promote the interdisciplinary and international research projects to know the evolutionary origins of human nature. HOPE aims to synthesize the different studies on mind (cognitive and brain sciences), body (morphology and palaeontology), society (sociology and ecology), and genome (molecular and cellular biology). HOPE also encourages the conservation studies for the wild endangered species and the animal welfare studies for captive ones. The main goal of the project is to create the next generation of these disciplines who will take the leading role in future. For this purpose, we provide three closely-inter-related education programs. (1): Inter-Laboratory Training Program, in which young researchers stay in the European and North American partner institutions for the advanced research and education, (2): Collaborative On-site Research Program, in which young researchers join the collaborative fieldwork with the host and partner institutions in habitat countries, and (3) International Workshop, to be held alternately in Japan and the habitat countries. The Primate Research Institute starts a new center in April 2009, that is called "Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies in Primatology (CICASP)". The new center CICASP will promote the HOPE project. As you know, the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) was created in Kyoto main campus April 2008 in the assistance of PRI. WRC is the collaborator of HOPE project. Both PRI and WRC will promote the scientific understanding of nonhuman animals to look for the peaceful coexistence of the living organisms sharing this planet.

3. Overseas Partner Institutions
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Germany), Harvard University (USA), University of Cambridge (UK), Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (Italy), Ecole Normal Superieure (France), Institut de Recherche Environnementale de Bossou (Guinea), Pusan National University (Korea), University of Yangon (Myanmar), National University of Laos (Laos), Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden (Viet Nam), Bogor Agricultural University (Indonesia), Andalas University (Indonesia), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), University of Malaysia Sabah (Malaysia), Guangxi Normal University (China), Bugando University College of Health Science (Tanzania), Nairobi Museum (Kenya), Research Center for Ecology and Forestry (DR Congo), Mbarara University of Science and Technology (Uganda) at the moment March 2009.

4. Scheme of the HOPE project

Contact address: itp-hope[@]pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Leader of the HOPE project: Tetsuro Matsuzawa, director of Primate Research Institute
Consulting staffs: Takeshi Furuichi, Masaki Tomonaga, and Gen Idani