History

The Honjo International Scholarship Foundation was approved by the Minister of Education as an incorporated scholarship foundation on December 25, 1996. Its establishment was financed by the late Mr. Masanori Honjo, founder of ltoen, Ltd., who donated to the Foundation personal assets worth two hundred million in cash and one million stocks of his company as the Foundation’s seed capital, as well as another onehundred million in cash as working capital. The Foundation was approved by the authorities as a Specified Corporation in the Public’s Interest in March 1998.

Mr. Masanori Honjo passed away in July 2002 and then Mrs. Teruko Honjo, inheriting her husband’s will, was appointed a president of the Foundation and donated ¥1.6million stocks of Itoen, Ltd., as the Foundation’s seed capital. Currently Mr. Hachiro Honjo, CEO of Itoen, Ltd., acts as a chairman of the Foundation.

The Foundation’s focus is on those bright students who have the potential to become outstanding leaders in developing nations in the future, to whom the Foundation provides scholarship in the hope that such nations will develop in peace.

The Foundation’s basic intention is to provide financial support to outstanding students, regardless of their field of study, to help them obtain their chosen degree in the shortest possible time by sparing them the trouble of working part-time. This is because the Foundation believes that such people should begin working in the interest of society as soon as possible after gaining their degree and they should be familiar with Japan and serve as a bridge connecting Japan with the rest of the world in culture and mutual friendship.

The Foundation offers mainly four scholarships under the name of the “Honjo International Scholarship,” namely the “Foreign Students Scholarship”, the “Japanese International Students Scholarship.”, the “Japanese Domestic Students Scholarship” and “High School Students Scholarship”. In addition, we have collaborated scholarship program with five universities or organizations in overseas. For any, individual students can apply directly to the Foundation. These are not what is called a “specified school scholarship,” for which applications must be made through each student’s school or university. Since 2012, we started the “Food and Health Research Fellowship Program” to provide financial support to researchers of food sciences.

The Foundation hope is through supporting many students and researchers who have global perspective, to contribute encouraging to study in abroad, and to develop international exchange and quality of research to the global community.