ASPIRE for Top Scientists

10 March 2025, by HCI-UHH

Photo: JST

The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST, President HASHIMOTO Kazuhito) has approved funding for 32 new research projects through the "ASPIRE for Top Scientists" and "ASPIRE for Rising Scientists" under the ASPIRE program.
The call for proposals was welcoming applications from Japan-based researchers and international partners funded by eligible counterpart institutions. The seven designated fields were: AI and information, biotechnology, energy, materials, quantum, semiconductors and telecommunications.

Our group is involved as partner in the project entitled: "Establishing an international collaborative research network on human and spatial augmentation” coordinated by Koike Hideki, Professor, School of Computing, Institute of Science Tokyo.

The following partner are members of the international consortium:

- Australia Mark Billinghurst, Professor, Human-Computer Interaction, University of South Australia
- Denmark Barry Brown, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen University
- Germany Albrecht Schmidt, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Ludwig-Maximilian’s Universität (LMU) in Munich
- Germany Frank Steinicke, Professor, Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg
- USA Gordon Wetzstein, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University
- USA Kris Kitani, Associate Research Professor, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

A total of 46 proposals were submitted to "ASPIRE for Top Scientists", out of which 14 were selected by expert evaluation. For "ASPIRE for Rising Scientists", a total of 85 proposals were submitted and 18 were selected.
For "ASPIRE for Top Scientists", each project is planned to be funded for five years with support of up to 500 million JPY. For "ASPIRE for Rising Scientists", each project is planned to be funded for three years with support of up to 90 million JPY.