The fellowships are part of the Akino Memorial Research Project, initiated in 1999 when United Nations University (UNU) received a ¥100 million donation from the Government of Japan in memory of Dr. Yutaka Akino, who was killed in July 1998 while on active service with the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan. Half of the donation is being used to fund the five-year research project on Central Asia and neighbouring regions, designed to help train young Japanese scholars under the theme of "Peace and Environment in Central Asia."

Each year of the project, UNU awards Akino Memorial Research Fellowships to several young Japanese scholars for up to one year of field study in Central Asia. Last month the Akino Memorial Research Fellowship Selection Committee, consisting of UNU in-house organizers and three external scholars, awarded fellowships to:

• Mr. Tetsuro Chida, a master course student in the Faculty of Regional Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, will do research on "Kunaev – Kolbin – Nazarbaev — The Change and Continuity of the Cadre Policy in Kazakhstan in the 1980s" in Almaty, Kazakhstan;

• Ms. Toko Fujimoto, a graduate student in Cultural Anthropology, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, will do research on "Social Networks based on Kinship: A Cultural Anthropological Study in Rural Kazakhstan" in the Mangystau and Pavrodar Provinces of Kazakhstan;

• Ms. Kochi Okada, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, London University, will research "Culture, Art and National Identity in Uzbekistan" in Tashkent, Margelan, Buchara, and Nukus; and

• Mr. Ippei Shimamura, a Ph.D. candidate for Anthropology, School of Cultural and Social Studies, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan), will conduct research on "The Roots-seeking Movement in Aga-Buryat: New Light on their Diaspora and Shamanism".