May I take this opportunity to extend my greetings at the start of the new fiscal year.  In October 2024, the Toyota Foundation successfully celebrated its 50th anniversary. This is largely thanks to all of you who have always supported the activities of the Toyota Foundation in various ways.  I deeply appreciate your understanding.  This year is an important one in which we take the first step toward the next 50 years, and we are renewing our resolve at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Looking back over the 50 years since the establishment of the Toyota Foundation to the present, we are once again reminded that the United States and the words and actions of its leaders have greatly shaped the global trends, for better or worse, during this period on the back of its overwhelming economic and military power.

Allow me to talk about my own experience when I personally felt this by way of example.  In the spring of 2012, as the newly appointed Executive Vice President for Global Affairs, the University of Tokyo, I attended a conference of university executives from around the world for the first time. In retrospect, this was the period when globalization was gaining momentum most powerfully.  At that time, the words that stuck with me were diversity and mobility, which were repeated by the leaders of American universities.

Given that these two values are inherent in the country's founding, I thought it was quite natural for American universities to try to attract more researchers and students from abroad by emphasizing these qualities. 

At the conference, universities from English-speaking countries that uses the language daily as the medium of instruction in school, such as the UK, Australia, and Singapore, showed strong support for this direction, and before long universities in many countries around the world, including Japan, began to underscore the importance of these two values.  They are trying to emulate American and British universities, which dominate the top positions in university rankings. (I will discuss what I consider major problems with these rankings on a separate occasion if any).  This university ranking system was launched as a business by a UK company.

I also believe that these two values of diversity and mobility are certainly important.  And yet, while they talk about "diversity," research and education are conducted only in English at these universities in English-speaking countries. In this sense, they are highly homogeneous in terms of language use.  By default, they are vastly different from universities in non-English-speaking countries which use languages other than English daily and have long cultivated their unique cultural environments.  If we are to say one of the roles of a university is to foster future leaders and strengthen the knowledge system in a country or region in which it is located, universities in non-English-speaking countries will not likely be successful even if they simply employ the system and structure of universities in English-speaking countries as a model.  Needless to say, we should not blindly accept such arguments of American universities nor reject everything they say, but rather we need to carefully examine the meaning and content of their discussions and decide on a path that is suitable for us.

This is just one small anecdotal example from my life, but the same thing seems apply in a bigger context.  For instance, let's take a look at the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI, which, unlike so far, seems to be on the brink of collapse these days.  The second Trump administration not only abolished various DEI programs in the United States, but also shut down many of the initiatives of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an organization that has long extended assistance to developing countries.  Given this development, an increasing number of American companies appear to be scaling down or scrapping DEI-related programs.  I would say the United States has its own unique set of circumstances.  However, this change in the U.S. domestic situation is likely to gravely affect many parts of the world in the days to come, raising the specter of growing skepticism about DEI.

The emphasis on diversity and international cooperation, which forms the basis of DEI, overlaps with the current direction of the Toyota Foundation’s grant programs.  Then, should we immediately review and revise these priorities to bring us in line with the latest developments in the United States? I don't think so.  In today's world, where many issues to be addressed globally have come to light, we all must be committed to the important goal of building a stable human society for people living in diverse environments on earth to recognize each other's positions and connect with one another.  DEI should be an indispensable and important value in this regard.  I believe that we should aim to achieve our goals steadfastly through our various activities that upholds this value. 

Many leading American private foundations have traditionally valued concepts, such as inclusion, and the practice of international cooperation.  Even under the current circumstances, I hear that these foundations are quietly carrying out such grant activities.  The MacArthur Foundation, with assets worth approximately $8.7 billion, plans to increase its annual grant amount from the current $400 million to $550 million over the next two years, in light of the government's cuts in public assistance for developing countries and domestic subsidies.  This shows that the significance of diversity, inclusion, and international cooperation is not entirely forgotten even in the United States.

The Toyota Foundation would like to actively engage in movements at home and abroad toward realizing DEI in a broad sense, which underpins the concept of establishing a human society.  To that end, we will increase the scale of our financial support, albeit slightly, in fiscal 2025 and carry out a variety of grant programs, including international cooperation. We will also explore ways to partner more closely and effectively with like-minded organizations and groups both in Japan and overseas. It is not that something will change drastically with us overnight in the coming year, but we would like to take the advice, encouragement, and expectations we received from many people on such occasions as the 50th anniversary symposium last fall and the gathering of grant recipients, and move forward steadily, step by step. I ask for your continued warm guidance and encouragement.