Program Objective
The Toyota Foundation celebrates its 50-year anniversary this year since it was founded in 1974. Over the years, as laid out in its prospectus, the Foundation has been aiming to achieve the mission of "contributing to the realization of greater human happiness,” and has focused on issues that serve the needs of the times in wide-ranging fields such as people’s life, the natural environment, social welfare, education and culture, and has so far made grants to research activities and projects dealing with these issues.
Over the past 50 years, human society has seen tectonic shifts in every aspect from politics to economy, people’s life to culture. As the pace of change is expected to increase from now, the Toyota Foundation would like to conduct its grant-making activities going forward, with a view toward what human society will look like 50 years from today.
As its 50-year anniversary grant program, the Foundation will accept research project proposals on the theme of “Envisioning Human Society 50 Years Ahead.”
Human society is going through major upheavals and changes due to a variety of factors including technological innovation, demographic shift, global environmental change, and a changing international situation. Given stunning scientific and technological progress in domains such as artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering, it may be worth considering whether we can assume human society as we know it will remain in existence in 50 years’ time.
Then, the question we need to ask ourselves is what human society should look like 50 years from now. Not only do we need to focus our attention on those issues that seem hard to resolve half a century later if things are left as they are, but we will also take notice of issues that are not yet surfaced today and explore what human society should be like from an innovative perspective.
As such, the Toyota Foundation looks forward to receiving project proposals that are ambitious, innovative, and unconventional in approach.
Outline of the Grant
| Theme | Envisioning Human Society 50 Years Ahead | |
|---|---|---|
| Grant Category | Joint Research Project: It must be conducted by at least two project members, and the representative must be aged 45 or younger at the start of the grant provision. | Individual Research Project :The applicant must be aged 40 or younger at the start of the grant provision. |
| Application Period | September 10 to November 6, 2024 (until 3:00 p.m. JST) | |
| Amount of Grant | Up to 10 million yen per project (grants will likely be given to three to four projects). | Up to 2 million yen per project (grants will likely be given to 15 to 20 projects). |
| Total amount of Grant | 70 million yen | |
| Grant Period | Joint Research Project: Two years from May 2025 to April 2027. |
Individual Research Project: One or two years from May 2025 to April 2026 or to April 2027. |
| Qualifications for Application | [Overall requirements (common to both projects]] ・ Application forms must be filed in either Japanese or English. ・ The grant program is open to applicants (the project representative and all project members), irrespective of their nationality, place of residence, affiliation, academic or professional records. ・ The grant program does not cover a project proposal focused solely on technology development and marketing or a feasibility study aimed specifically at commercializing a certain project is excluded. |
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| [Joint Research Project] ・ A joint research project must be conducted by at least two project members, with the representative aged 45 or younger at the start of the grant provision. ・ The contact person needs to be able to communicate with the Toyota Foundation staff in Japanese. ・ The project members must disseminate their research outcomes widely to society. (They need to think of not only making academic contributions such as through publishing research papers, but also creating books or films and organizing workshops or a symposium.) ・ Research results must be produced and disseminated in both Japanese and English. |
[Individual Research Project] ・ The applicant must be aged 40 or younger at the start of the grant provision. ・ Research outcomes or social contributions must be made public to the extent possible, but such an activity should not be done mainly for the purpose of improving their track record. |
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| Selection of Grants |
Formal decisions on the awarding of grants will be made by the Toyota Foundation Board of Directors at a meeting to be held in March 2025, based on the deliberations of responsible Selection Committee consisting of external experts. | |
Applications
Please download the Proposal Guidelines, Sample Proposal Forms, and apply via the Apply.
| Item | File and Form |
| Project Proposal Guidelines | Guidelines |
| Project Proposal Form (Sample) | Joint Project |
| Individual Project | |
| Project Proposal Form | Apply |
FAQ
For questions regarding this program, please refer to this section⇒FAQ