Nobuyuki Kanazawa Seminar from Soka University’s Faculty of Economics won the “Subcommittee Award” at the Inter-University Seminar for the Future of Japan (ISFJ) Policy Forum, which was held online on December 11th (Saturday) and 12th (Sunday), 2021 (with the cooperation and support from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, and the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management).

With the philosophy, “Realization of a desirable society through student policy proposals,” ISFJ provides support for policymaking by highly-motivated students and offers opportunities to present those policies to realize them. ISFJ also invites experts from fields of industry, government, and academia for policy makings to provide advice and opportunities for discussions. ISFJ sought participating groups from university seminars across the nation as well as other organizations. At the Policy Forum, which is held every December, participants presented their policy proposal papers (in a presentation format). This year’s Policy Forum was the 26th event to be held, and 98 papers from 20 universities were submitted.

Nobuyuki Kanazawa Seminar participated in Education (2) Subcommittee and presented a policy titled, “Working Toward the Improvement of Unfair Education Opportunities Due to Income Disparity ~Proposal for the Introduction of Study Coupons and Mandatory Interviews~.” It is “a policy to conduct an empirical analysis on how education opportunity differentials occur due to income disparity and provide fairer education opportunities based on the findings.” The seminar did research on this policy for approximately six months and presented their findings.

The representative of the award-winning team, Ms. Natsuko Kyozawa, gave the following comment. “Although members had other engagements, we conducted the research daily by cooperating with one another and encouraging each other. I am truly delighted to have won the Subcommittee Award as a result of the wonderful peers I met through ISFJ. I intend to pass on what I have gained from this experience to my juniors and help the Kanazawa Seminar make further advancements.”