2008
Began concrete discussions with the University of Buckingham on the development of Japan-UK academic exchange. This marked the starting point of the Founder’s long-term involvement in building academic links between the University of Buckingham and Japanese institutions, and later became the earliest foundation of the work institutionalised through the Tobisawa Institute.

 

2010

Arranged and supported a series of English language and academic programmes linking Japan and the United Kingdom, helping to develop the early framework for sustained Japan-UK educational and academic exchange.

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2011
-Played a central role in major developments in Japan-UK academic cooperation, including the advancement of undergraduate degree programmes and related exchange arrangements.

-A major early milestone was marked by the visit to Japan of Professor Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, Professor Richard Langhorne, Mr Gerry Loftus,

Mr Peter Thorogood, and Mrs Léonie Thorogood.

-During that visit, a special lecture by Professor Richard Langhorne was held at the Parliamentary Museum of the House of Representatives, Tokyo. The event was organised by the Founder and his family with the cooperation of multiple institutional and private supporters, and both the lecture and

its accompanying reception were underwritten through their private patronage.

 

2013
Undergraduate double degree cooperation was extended beyond Law to the field of International Studies, marking a further stage in the academic development of Japan-UK institutional cooperation.

 

2013–2019
As this relationship deepened, the Founder invited to Japan a succession of senior figures from the University of Buckingham: Dr Jae Sundaram (Dean of Law), Professor James Rafferty (First Dean of Business), Professor Alistair Alcock (Acting Vice-Chancellor), Professor John Drew (Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences), Mr Gerry Loftus (Emeritus Fellow), and Professor Martin Ricketts (Director of the Max Beloff Institute). While formal lectures, signing ceremonies, and graduation-related events were conducted by Japanese institutional hosts, the wider Tokyo programmes, visits, and related arrangements were organised by the Founder and his family. The proposals, selection of invitees, and personal requests that made these visits possible came from the Founder, and this continuity became an important part of the human and institutional foundation of the long-standing relationship.

 

2015
Helped establish a specialised English teacher training initiative linking educational institutions in Japan and the United Kingdom.

 

2017
Organised and supported a commemorative cherry tree planting in Buckingham, marking the continuing development of Japan-UK academic ties and giving ceremonial expression to a relationship built over time.

 

2018
The Founder’s book, The Influence of Civil Society on Japanese Nuclear Disarmament Policy, was published by University of Buckingham Press. This was not merely an individual publication. It was the first book-length scholarly articulation of the line of research from which the Tobisawa Institute would later draw much of its intellectual direction. It established the original foundation for the Institute’s later work on diplomacy, nuclear disarmament, civil society, and, in time, ethical realism.

 

2020–2022
The continuity of in-person academic visits was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, during which overseas invitations and related programmes could not be carried out.

 

2021
Played the leading role in proposing and establishing a university-based academic society for United Nations studies at the University of Buckingham, adding a formal scholarly framework to work that had previously developed through exchange, public lectures, and publication.

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2023
-With international visits resumed, Professor James Tooley and Professor Julian Richards, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Director of BUCSIS, visited Japan.

-A special lecture by Professor James Tooley, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, followed by a reception, was hosted at Hotel New Otani, Tokyo, by the Founder and his family. It marked a further institutional milestone in the history later consolidated through the Tobisawa Institute.

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2024–2025
Professor Julian Richards, as Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Director of BUCSIS, continued this line of academic representation in Japan by attending graduation-related events, while the Founder and his family organised Tokyo visits and related arrangements in support of the long-established relationship.

 

2026
-These accumulated efforts were brought together under an independent institutional form through the formal establishment of the Tobisawa Institute.

-Within the Institute, the Akemi Tobisawa Research Grant Fund gave formal institutional expression to a long-standing pattern of personal devotion and private patronage that had sustained this work over many years.

-The Founder’s new book, Legacy and Prospects: Civil Society in Japanese Nuclear Disarmament Policy – Ethical Realism and Diplomacy, was published by the University of Buckingham Press on 9 July 2026. Issued as the substantially revised and expanded Second Edition of the 2018 volume, the book extends the Institute’s intellectual foundations into a broader and more explicitly theoretical phase. It develops ethical realism as an analytical approach to diplomacy, international security, civil society, and responsible judgement in international affairs. 

Its publication marked a major intellectual milestone in the Institute’s founding year and represented a further outcome of the Japan-UK academic engagement initiated in 2008.

​-Tobisawa Institute and the University of Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on academic collaboration and institutional cooperation on 21 July 2026.

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​​​​The Tobisawa Institute did not begin from a blank slate.

It was established to secure continuity, independence, and institutional durability for work already tested over many years, and to carry that work forward under its own name in a more formal and enduring phase.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​