EURAXESS Japan Shinkansen Roadshow: Thuringia - Hamamatsu

The EURAXESS Japan Shinkansen Roadshow is a webinar series that focuses on EU-Japan cooperative partnerships. It aims to provide researchers, businesses, research institutions as well as the public with new opportunities and inspiration for EU-Japan partnerships. This event showcases the flourishing collaboration in photonics between Jena in Thuringia, Germany, and Hamamatsu Shizuoka, Japan.

The city of Jena in Thuringia is widely recognized as a world leader in the optics and photonics industry. In addition to hosting top-tier manufacturers such as Carl Zeiss, the region is home to numerous startups and research institutes. Key players from industry, academia, and government actively collaborate to foster innovation. Likewise, Hamamatsu in Shizuoka prefecture is a bustling manufacturing hub with numerous major companies and is focused on cultivating an ecosystem where research institutes, SMEs, government, and financial institutions can come together to drive photonics innovation.

For several years, these two regions have been cooperating closely to enhance their global competitiveness by working together to develop new technologies and internationalize their supply chains. In this webinar, we will delve into their collaborative history and explore how it has resulted in synergistic benefits for both regions. We will also find out how they plan to maintain their partnership in the future, given the growing need for innovative solutions to address pressing societal issues such as climate change, pandemics, and industrial digital transformation.