The Royal Society of Edinburgh Discussion Forum Engineering Scotland and Japan: Past, Present and Future

(part of the JapanUK 150 series) Thursday 3rd September, 2009 Report by Peter Barr

Bridges, beer and student exchanges

The discussion forum at the RSE was part of the JapanUK 150 series of events, organised to celebrate 150 years of friendship between Japan and the UK and encourage exchanges in culture, the arts, sport, education and science. And the five speakers not only revealed some surprising connections between Japan and Scotland in the past but also shared their recent academic and business experiences and their hopes for the next generation of Japanese and Scottish engineers Did you know that a young Japanese engineer was involved in the construction of that great Scottish icon, the Forth Rail Bridge? Did you know that a Scotsman founded one of Japans leading breweries? Or that Scotsmen played a key role in the founding of Japans first universities, shipyards and banks? These were just some of the facts to emerge from the evenings discussions, which focused on the links between Japan and Scotland since the mid 19th century, with an emphasis on engineering, education, science and technology not forgetting beer. The first speaker, Professor Alex Craik, described the emergence of modern Japan between 1853 and 1885, and the Scotsmen who played a key role in the process. Among the leading figures was Lord Elgin, who gained the first trading concessions in the late 1850s, Laurence Oliphant, who wrote a popular account of Elgins travels, William Keswick and Hugh Matheson (of Jardine Matheson fame), who broke the law to help five young Japanese samurai (the Choshu 5) sail to the UK to study. Some of these young men returned to Japan to play prominent roles in government and business, including Kikuchi Dairoku, a mathematician who later became the Minister of Education and President of Kyoto University. One of the most colourful Scots in Japanese history was Thomas Glover, who played a dangerous game selling arms to the Satsuma and the Choshu clans, and founded a shipyard which was later bought by engineering giant, Mitsubishi. Glover also founded Kirin Beer, still one of Japans leading brands. Other leading Scots included John Black, one of Japans first newspaper magnates, and numerous medical missionaries, bankers and engineers including Richard Brunton, the father of Japanese lighthouses (trained by the Stevensons) who in his spare time improved Yokohamas drainage and macadamised roads. Japans shipbuilding, railways and iron production also owed a lot to Scottish engineers. Craik then described the influence of Scots on education in Japan, focusing on Henry Dyer, who became the Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo in

1872, recruiting many Scots and others with Scottish connections, including the geologist John Milne, inventor of the seismograph, and the physicist Sir James Ewing who discovered hysteresis (the idea that physical systems have memories). Among the Japanese scholars with Scottish connections were Seikei Sekiya, who became the first professor of seismology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, Tanakadate Aikitsu, who visited Lord Kelvin in Glasgow, and Kaichi Watanabe, who studied in Glasgow and worked on the construction of the Forth Rail Bridge in the late 1880s. The Imperial College of Engineering, said Craik, set the scene for engineering in Japan, and its students (mainly Samurai) enjoyed high prestige a tradition that continues up to this day. Sadayuki Ujihashi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology then described the links between the two countries from a Japanese perspective, and discussed the success of the exchange programme between his Institute and the University of Strathclyde. Professor Ujihashi explained how Japan first opened up to the world, from the time Commander Perry arrived in Tokyo in 1853 with his black ships, until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and beyond. In 1603, the Tokoguwa Shoguns thought that they would rule forever and banned foreign travel. The port of Nagasaki was a pinhole through which Japan saw the rest of the world, but the country lived in almost complete isolation for about 250 years, when foreigners including the British established relations and forced Japan to open up its ports. The British had a major influence during this period, said Ujihashi, and nurtured the talents of many young students like Yozo Yamao. When Yamao returned to Japan after his studies in Glasgow, he joined the new government and played a key role in the founding of the Imperial College of Engineering. Ujihashi also described the development of Japan after the Meiji restoration, and how the Scots had helped, including the first telegraph in 1869, the postal system (1871), the founding of the Bank of Japan (1882) and the first telephone link between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1890. In education, Scottish influence was not just felt at university level but also in primary schools. He also described Henry Dyer (a graduate of Andersons College in Glasgow) as the father of engineering education in Japan, and said he played a key role in developing the curriculum, including general science, where English was also taught alongside more technical subjects like maths. Kaichi Watanabe then came under the spotlight, with Ujihashi describing his studies in Glasgow from 1884 to 1886, his work as a foreman on the Forth Rail Bridge from 1886 to 1888 and his return to Japan, where he became an entrepreneur with an interest in railways and civil engineering. For his grand finale, Ujihashi then displayed the famous photograph of Watanabe, sitting in the centre of the cantilever model of the bridge then zoomed in on the image of the Bank of Scotland 20 note, printed two years ago, featuring the same image of the young Japanese engineer. Dr David Nash of the University of Strathclyde then provided an insight into the student exchange programme set up by Strathclyde and the Tokyo Institute of Technology an agreement recently renewed until 2013. Nash himself has spent time in Japan and he and Ujihashi were the first academics to do an exchange, with the first student from Strathclyde (Dr Chris Roach) visiting Tokyo in 1994. Some students from Tokyo now spend up to one year in Glasgow, while Scottish students visit Japan for a single semester, to carry out various projects including the development of a remote-control robotic arm designed for use in disaster recovery, biomimetic robots which mimic human behaviour, and a human-driven snake vehicle. The first integrated project started in 2008 and from 2009 to 2010, 10 students from Japan and eight from Scotland will work as a team. Nash said that

students from Strathclyde were now competing for acceptance in the programme, with 25 students applying for only five places. Nash also said that Henry Dyers legacy survives in the form of in-class teaching and off-class training still encouraged today. He also quoted Dyers ambitions for Japan: Knowledge should be sought for throughout the whole world, so that the welfare of the Empire may be promoted (or in order that its status may be raised ever higher and higher). Finally, Nash said that the programme is all about relationships and all about fun. To provide the commercial perspective, Tim Ashton, Research Director of Vascutek, then described what happens when a Scottish high-tech firm is acquired by Japans largest medical device company, Terumo. And the plain facts are that Vascutek has more than doubled in size from about 200 to 550 people, with turnover up from about 23 million to 55 million. The origins of Vascutek go back to 1979, when the company developed a new kind of vascular graft in a project involving Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the textiles manufacturer Coats Patons and the University of Strathclydes bioengineering department. Several inventions and Queens Awards later, the company was taken over by Terumo, and has since developed several more innovations, and gone on to acquire another company which makes porcine heart valves. In 2002, Vascuteks parent company got into difficulties and the Scottish subsidiary was ripe for acquisition, with several US firms keen to move in. Ashton revealed that Terumo arrived on the scene at the 11th hour, and even though it did not offer more cash, it offered better terms than the American favourites, and its bid was accepted. Terumo wanted to be a global player and Vascutek was the first implant company it had acquired. So what was the impact? Ashton said the first thing that impressed him and his colleagues was the President of Terumo immediately coming to Scotland to speak face to face with the staff. The President said there would be no job losses and no local management changes for at least two years, and kept to his promise. The Vasutek team carried on as usual, with a Japanese transition manager joining them in Scotland. Terumo people joined the board and engineers were sent out to work in the plant, along with representatives from quality control and accounts. The two companies share more technology now and Ashton said that Vascutek has had to make some cultural adjustments as well as learn to live with new reporting requirements. Recently, Terumo became the new distributor for Vascutek in the Japanese market, and Ashton said the company would wait to see if this arrangement works or not. Ashton said that Japanese executives found it odd at first that British people laugh and joke at meetings and sometimes tear into each other, but he said that their Japanese colleagues now know when theyre being ironic. Vascutek has also retained a degree of autonomy, according to Ashton. The bottom line for Ashton is continuing investment, technical collaboration, some extra bureaucracy, good personal relations, higher turnover, more staff and a new factory. Vascutek also uses Terumo technology, whilst Terumo engineers now split their time between Scotland and Japan, and the manufacturing of some of Terumos vascular grafts has transferred to Scotland. A Terumo research team is also at work on the development of a new Vascutek product, and Terumo has signed a crosslicensing agreement which helps protect Vasuteks intellectual property not just a good example of how to conduct global business but an exciting new chapter in the story of relations between Scotland and Japan.

Q&A Dr Nash was asked about the costs involved in studying in Tokyo versus Glasgow, and said they were largely the same although funding was always welcome. Do engineers in Japan enjoy a higher status than their counterparts in Scotland? Demand for places in Japan is very high, said Ujihashi, while Nash said engineering was a top career in many other countries, including Japan, while in Scotland engineers may not enjoy such high status but make a big impact. Another issue raised was language, with Japanese students keen to learn English but Scottish students visiting Tokyo getting by with a few basics and studying exclusively in English. Is research and development tackled differently in Japan, compared to Scotland? Ashton said that Terumo used to have hundreds of researchers but had recently changed its approach. He also said the Japanese take a longer-term view of research, and are prepared to wait for years to get results, unlike companies in this country, but thought the best approach was somewhere in between. For more information on JapanUK 150, go to www.japanuk150.org

Opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the RSE, nor of its Fellows The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotlands National Academy, is Scottish Charity No. SC000470