Student exchange enhances Japanese collaboration
It has been two years since Monash signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI). This MoU led to an international program partnership, allowing any Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) PhD students to travel to Japan to conduct research at RIKEN as part of their PhD studies.
RIKEN is Japan’s largest comprehensive research institution, renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. RIEKN BSI is considered one of the world’s leading neuroscience research bodies.
The Student Exchange Program with RIKEN enriches the Monash graduate course and promotes collaborative research activities. Students who undertake the exchange program contribute to future advancement of science and technology, by forming international networks of excellent research.
Declan Rowley, a PhD student from the Neuroscience Program, said his recent visit to Japan was an amazing experience. Declan was based at the Wako Campus in Saitama, just outside Tokyo. While at Wako, Declan undertook research investigating the functional behaviour of neurons, collaborating with the researchers at Wako to combine specialties from the lab at Monash with RIKEN’s newly developed imaging techniques.
“It was a whole new line of study that I wouldn’t have had the chance to complete otherwise,” Declan said.
“I would definitely recommend this program to other PhD students. They should be prepared for the challenges of staying in a foreign country, and the different working environment, but this shouldn’t stop a motivated student.”
Declan’s exchange was so successful that he was invited by RIKEN to return to undertake more work in the host lab.
“It was great to be asked to return. It proved that the work we were doing together was building towards something meaningful,” Declan said.
Declan’s supervisor, Dr Hsin-Hao Yu, commented on the benefits of the program for collaboration with another lab.
“From this experience, I learnt that the exchange program is a good way to build up a strong connection between our labs, leading to further collaborations in the future,” Dr Yu said.
Professor Marcello Rosa, Head of the Neuroscience Program at Monash BDI, drives the Monash BDI-RIKEN partnership. He believes that this initiative with RIKEN creates a unique opportunity for highly-motivated Monash BDI students, to go beyond the boundaries of the traditional PhD.
“The duration of the visits enabled by this program is such that the student has an opportunity to complete a project embedded in the Japanese team. It requires some planning between the supervisors in Australia and Japan, but the benefits are tremendous,” Professor Rosa said.
“I encourage lab heads to support their PhD students to consider this exciting opportunity.”
The next round of applications for the RIKEN Student Exchange Program will be in April. If you are interested in applying, contact bdi-graduate.program@monash.edu