Activities of AMED Overseas Offices Activities of London Liaison

AMED opened its London Office on 1st February 2017 as a hub to strengthen collaboration with UK, European and African countries in medical research and development. The London Office became the London Liaison on 1st April 2022 and continues its activities in this role.

At the same time it began activities in London, AMED signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) on 1st February 2017, which was renewed on 12th September 2022. Both AMED and the MRC support a wide range of medical R&D programmes across the spectrum from basic to applied research, and they agreed to work together to accelerate medical R&D through collaboration in the mutually-prioritised areas of infectious disease, antimicrobial resistance, regenerative medicine, and dementia.

Since that time, AMED and the MRC have cooperated to hold joint workshops and symposia, and have launched joint funding calls for Japan-UK collaborative projects in these prioritised research areas. Among their joint symposia, the Japan-UK Neuroscience Symposium has been held annually since 2018, with the location alternating between Japan and the UK.

AMED started the Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for an Innovative Research Ecosystem (ASPIRE) Program in the medical R&D field in 2023, with the aims to promote international human exchange and to strengthen international joint research in cutting-edge science in collaboration with developed countries. From the UK, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the Wellcome Trust are participating in the program. Within the ASPIRE framework, AMED has also collaborated with the MRC to support bilateral joint projects in the field of engineering biology for novel therapies and diagnostics.

In addition to bilateral cooperation, AMED and the MRC are also both active members of the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R), and the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR).

Beyond these activities, AMED London has also organised events for Japan-UK research interaction focusing on themes around healthy ageing, data-driven health, biobanks and cohort studies.