The Japan Society Awards for 2009 were presented to Professor David Cope and the Reverend Professor Kemmyo Taira Sato. The Reverend Sato’s award was accepted by his wife Hiroko Sato on his behalf.

 The 2009 recipients have worked in very different fields, but each has helped to strengthen ties between the Uk and Japan.

Marie Conte-Helm, chair of the Awards Committee read citations for both recipients, after which the Awards were presented by Christopher Purvis, chairman of the Japan Society, to David Cope and to Hiroko Sato representing Kemmyo Taira Sato.

David Cope has over many years made important contributions to knowledge and analysis of various aspects of Japan in both the scientific and social studies areas, including, for example, his Chatham House talk on natural disasters in Japan and their influence on Japanese society. It is relevant that prior to his appointment as Director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in 1998, David was Professor of Energy and Resource Economics at Doshisha University in Kyoto, moving there from Cambridge where he was Director of the UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK CEED).

While at UK CEED, David Cope was responsible for the first ever Anglo-Japanese conference on environmental issues, was adviser on environmental matters to the UK Japan 2000 Group  and also participated in several Anglo-Japanese research projects on subjects as varied as the use of information technologies for regional development, coastal environmental protection and the implications of nanotechnology.

David Cope has been an advisor to the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and Japan Society on their joint lecture series and an active participant on occasions. He is an international assessor for MEXT, the Japanese science ministry, on its 21st Century Centres of Excellence research programme and to several Japanese university research programmes. He is currently a Trustee of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, where his knowledge of socio-economic factors in science and technology is helping to extend links. He does not seek to put himself forward, but is a true enthusiast and a friend to Japan and his enthusiasm for and intellectual engagement with Japan has made him a valuable member of the Anglo-Japanese community.

The Reverend Professor Kemmyo Taira Sato in 1994 established and since that time has run Three Wheels, a Shin Buddhist centre in West London that is also a branch of Shogyoji Temple in Japan. His master, the Venerable Chimyo Takehara, intended that he should ‘work to foster mutual understanding and spiritual exchange in the context of Anglo-Japanese relationships, and at the same time seek to help Japanese people resident here on the path towards inner peace through encounter with people from other traditions’. As well as regular bi-monthly Eza meetings and other ceremonies, Three Wheels performs many special and outreach functions for the London and wider British community, including the Annual Ceremony of Peace and Reconciliation held in August, with British and Japanese participants including war veterans, reconciliation groups and different Buddhist sects. The Reverend Sato has a truly international and ecumenical mind and Three Wheels is visited not only by many Japanese and British people but many different believers from many different religious backgrounds.

Beyond his work at Three Wheels, the Reverend Sato has served as a committee member of the Burma Campaign Society, always bringing wisdom and tolerance to its reconciliation activities and discussion. He has been a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS; Guest Professor at UCL, Lecturer at Birkbeck College, and frequent speaker at the Buddhist Society. The Reverend Sato is also one of the directors of the Buddhist Society in London and, as the last disciple of D. T. Suzuki, has recently been helping the Society proceed with the republication of D. T. Suzuki’s books.  

The Reverend Sato has dedicated a Buddhist Stupa of Namu-Amida-butsu as a burial place for all Buddhists in this country, and annually holds a ceremony at Brookwood Cemetery to remember the four Japanese students who were buried there 140 years ago, one of the oldest Japanese graves in the West, and the British people who cared for them. He also regularly conducts ceremonies at the Japanese cemetery in Hendon, founded before the Second World War and still used by the Japanese community today.

The Japan Society Awards are presented each year to mark significant work in the field of UK Japan relations which has not otherwise been recognized. All members are encouraged to nominate those who they feel are deserving of such an Award.

Awards are usually granted each year to two recipients, with one being British and the other Japanese. However, there is no hard and fast rule on this; it depends on the circumstances in a particular year. The nominee does not need to be a member of the Society.