Crawford School of Public Policy

Crawford School’s Emeritus Professor Peter Drysdale has won the Japan Foundation Award for 2014 for his pioneering work in the study of economic policy in Japan and East Asia, the formation of APEC and economic exchange between Australia and Japan.

The Japan Foundation Award is a prestigious award made each year to individuals and organisations that have made a distinguished contribution to scholarship, cultural and international affairs related to Japan. Former recipients include Harvard professor, historian and diplomat, Edwin Reischauer, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and translator Donald Keene.

Two individual awards have been made to Australians since the Awards were established in 1973, both to former ANU staff, Sir John Crawford, former Chancellor, received the Award in 1984 for his service to Australia-Japan economic relations. Modern translator of Japanese classic novel, The Tale of Genji, Royall Tyler. received the Award in 2007. In 1979, the pre-cursor project to the the University’s Australia-Japan Research Centre, which Professor Drysdale was instrumental in founding, received the Award for institutions.

Professor Drysdale is an individual recipient of the Prize in 2014, together with Japanese rakugo master (comic story teller), Sankyo Yanagiya. The Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University received the Prize for its institutional contribution. The Japan Foundation Awards Ceremony will take place in Tokyo at the Okura Hotel on 14 October and Professor Drysdale and other recipients will be received by His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, the following afternoon.

Professor Drysdale went to Japan to study the development of the Australia-Japan relationship as a graduate student from the ANU.

“The associations and the deep friendships that I formed then and through my work in Japan and around the Asia Pacific region over all these years have been a never-ending source of inspiration and encouragement,” said Professor Drysdale.

“The Award is a huge honour, and above all recognition of their support and commitment to cooperation among the peoples of our region.”

The Award attracts a prize of five million yen that Professor Drysdale has committed to research and exchanges on regional cooperation.

Professor Drysdale is widely acknowledged as the leading intellectual architect of APEC. He was founding head of the Australia-Japan Research Centre and is known internationally for his work on East Asian and Pacific economic cooperation and the East Asian economies. He is recipient of the Asia Pacific Prize, the Weary Dunlop Award, the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon, the Australian Centenary Medal and he is a Member of the Order of Australia, and an Honorary Doctor of Letters, from ANU. He is presently Head of East Asia Forum, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) and the South Asia Bureau of Economic Research (SABER). In 2011-12, he served on the Advisory and Cabinet Committee of the Australian Government’s White Paper on Australia’s in the Asian Century and as a member of the Strategic Advisory Board for implementation of the White Paper.

Interested in studying with Peter Drysdale? He teaches International Policy Studies and Placement (CRWF8018).