It has been a while since study abroad and international placement or fellowship for researchers became common. Therefore, the number of Japanese researchers of diverse types who work overseas is growing while Japanese academics working at foreign universities are yet minority. I studied, obtained a degree and worked as an academic in Japan and moved to a university in the United Kingdom in January 2023, which has placed me in an even more minority group.

Academic job hunting in the UK is quite different from that in Japan. Although it has been only a few months since my appointment, I share my recent experiences around job hunting, application, interview and academic life in the UK in the present article.

In this paper, I share about my experience as a French researcher in a Japanese university. I briefly discuss about what brought me to Japan, some differences and similarities between France and Japan and finally what are the challenges and rewards of being a foreign faculty in Japan.

Being an associate professor at a French university, I take a brief look back over the more than 20 years I spent in France after receiving my master's degree in Japan. I also present my feelings on these experiences with describing my current life. Issues common to anyone living in a foreign country, such as residence permits, housing, and relationships to languages, are also discussed.

  This work is a personal reflection on my decade of living and working in Japan, which spanned from the early days of measuring second sound in superfluid helium using particle image velocimetry as a visiting PhD student at the University of Tsukuba, to the period of being hired as a postdoc and later as a faculty member at Kyushu University. Since 2020, in an almost poetic coincidence, I have returned to the University of Tsukuba to start my own lab, where I continue my investigation into the many unsolved problems in nucleate boiling heat transfer. Although it is not intended to be a guide on finding opportunities in Japan, I hope my experience would be of help to foreign researchers who are considering furthering their careers in the country.

This article shares perspectives and research experiences stemming from the author’s research journey in Japan spanning over 20 years. It attempts to illuminate available opportunities as well as challenges that foreign researchers in Japan confront. In addition, it shares insights into how Japanese academic and research institutions can collaboratively create an enabling environment for international researchers, which would further position Japan as a global research talent hub.

A report article about what I saw and heard at Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT) which has been established in Malaysia under the mutual cooperation between Malaysian and Japanese governments aiming for Japanese-style engineering education. Contents are the background of the establishment of MJIIT, the study abroad program from Malaysia to Japan, the treatment of Japanese professors, a story of how I became a professor at MJIIT, promotion criteria to a professor, curriculum of MPE and offered subjects, importance of accreditation for engineer education programs in Malaysia, supervision of doctoral course students, etc.