ANU History Professor Nicholas Brown has been appointed to a prestigious annual Visiting Professor in Australian Studies position at the Centre for Pacific and American Studies (CPAS), University of Tokyo, for the 2024–25 term. 

Professor Brown's research and teaching at the University of Tokyo will build on his existing expertise in Australian and international history, examining the history of Australian and Japanese efforts in building multilateral cooperation in the Pacific and beyond. He aims to use the appointment to strengthen connections between Japanese and Australian scholars, using his links with policy and government to highlight common issues of how nations adjust to economic, social, political and strategic transition. He said, ‘my time in Tokyo will offer a rich opportunity to deepen my appreciation of the Japanese perspective on these processes, to explain something of the Australian experience of them, and to contribute to an appreciation of points of intersection. These are very much matters of histories informing the present’.

Professor Kate Darian-Smith, Chair of the Selection Committee and Executive Dean of the College of Arts, Law and Education at the University of Tasmania, said the appointment of leading scholars in Australian Studies to the prestigious University of Tokyo ‘is essential to developing Australia-Japan relations and educational exchanges’.

The Professor of Australian Studies position at the University of Tokyo is supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF), and the selection process managed with assistance from the International Australian Studies Association (InASA). Applications for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 terms for the Visiting Professorship will open in mid-2024.