Tokyo University of Agriculture (TUA) and SEARCA signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on 23 February 2010 to collaborate in providing graduate scholarships to Southeast Asians.

Dr. Kanju Ohsawa (left), TUA President, and Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr., SEARCA Director, shake hands after the MOA signing held on 23 February 2010 at SEARCA, Los Ba�os, Laguna.

The collaborative undertaking, called "TUA-SEARCA Scholarship for Dissertation Doctorate Program," allows a Southeast Asian scholar to be conferred a doctorate from TUA upon satisfying the academic requirements for doctorate dissertation work. Initially, the program will have one scholar for its first three years (2010-2013) of implementation.

Signatories of the MOA were Dr. Kanju Ohsawa, TUA President, and Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr., SEARCA Director. The signing was witnessed by Dr. Akimi Fujimoto, Director for International Programs, TUA, and Dr. Francisco F. Peñalba, Deputy Director for Administration, SEARCA.

In the brief signing ceremony, Dr. Editha C. Cedicol, Manager of SEARCA's Graduate Scholarship Department, said that TUA and SEARCA's partnership goes as far back as 1973 when SEARCA launched a Food Fermentation Project with UPLB. That project had several visiting professors from TUA coming to SEARCA and UPLB from 1973 to 1979. In 2000, the two institutions signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in similar fields of interest.

"The relationship of SEARCA and TUA was further strengthened in 2006 with TUA becoming an associate member of the University Consortium, a network that SEARCA initiated in 1989 and continues to coordinate up to the present," Dr. Cedicol said.

"This (the MOA) is part of our efforts to build capacities in agriculture and related fields among Southeast Asian nationals. Being the center for agriculture in this part of the world, we see this as an integral part of our role and mandate in bringing about agricultural and rural development. SEARCA cannot do it alone and has to reach out and forge partnerships with other centers of excellence that share the same concern," Dr. Saguiguit noted.

Dr. Ohsawa capped the ceremony with some words of thanks. He said, "We at TUA are very honored and grateful for this partnership with SEARCA. I hope that this collaboration will lead to other joint initiatives in the future," he said.

TUA is an academic institution founded in 1891 in Japan. It offers agricultural education in the core areas of agronomy, life science, environmental science, and bio-industry science to advance agriculture and to support agriculture's related industries.