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2026.06.01News

Early-Career Researchers Report Sustained Growth Across the Qualia Structure Research Area

May 2026 · Mid-Term Evaluation

Survey results from the 2023–2026 mid-term evaluation — compiled from responses by ECRs and PIs.

2Postdocs promoted to assistant professor

2JSPS DC fellowships awarded

10+Awards and prizes received

15+ECR respondents from 8+ institutions

Career Advancement

Ryuta KuwamizuA01/A03 Postdoc, Moriguchi Lab → Assistant Professor, University of Tsukuba (Institute of Health and Sport Sciences), April 2024. Now leads sport qualia structure research as co-PI in A01.

Ryoichi WatanabeA03 Postdoc, Kyoto University → Assistant Professor, Ritsumeikan University, 2026.

Fellowships & Awards

Riku Umekawa — JSPS DC1A03

Takafumi Horie — JSPS DC2, ¥1.5M, 2026–2028C02

Taiki Sekizawa — Doctoral Dissertation Special Prize (UTokyo); Encouragement Award & Popular Presentation Award, Japanese Neural Network SocietyC01

Shunsuke Kamiya — Doctoral Dissertation Special Prize, UTokyoC01

Naoto Yoshida — Best Paper Runner-Up, ICONIP2025C02

Ryuzo Hirota — Best Student Paper Runner-Up, ALIFE2024A01/A02

Kentaro Nomura — BabyBot Challenge Finalist, ICDL2025C01

Yu Togashi — Best Presentation Award, Vision Society of JapanC01

Ken Takeda — Ichikou Prize & Encouragement Award, UTokyoC01

So Takahashi — Ichikou Prize, UTokyoC01

Qianchen Liang — Open Science grant, $14,888 USD (≈¥2,300,000), Center for Open ScienceA01

Ryoichi Watanabe — Registered Report grant, $21,987 USD, Center for Open ScienceA03

Selected publications & preprints

ECRs have led research published or in submission in Neuroscience of Consciousness, iScience, Scientific Reports, Physical Review X, PNAS, Neural Networks, F1000Research, and Journal of Neuroscience Methods, among others. Topics include color and visual qualia structure, developmental qualia measurement in young children, emergent communication, category-theoretic approaches to affordances and autonomy, and the neural correlates of dream consciousness.

Self-organized activities

Kyoko Kusano organized seminars on quantum instruments and Kitaro Nishida philosophy, and led a journal club series at ATR/ZEN University.

Qianchen Liang produced a 27-episode YouTube journal-club series (“Let’s discuss a paper soon after reading it!”), reaching researchers worldwide.

Ryuzo Hirota launched “Enaction in Japan,” an online reading group for early-career researchers in embodied cognition, seeding a new interdisciplinary network.

Naoto Yoshida and Moe Ohkuma co-organized the “Language Emergence and Qualia Structure” session at the February 2026 grant meeting (OIST).

International exchange & outreach

Presentations at ASSC (Tokyo, Sapporo), ALIFE (Japan, Copenhagen, Kyoto), ICONIP (Okinawa), ICDL (Prague), ASPP and ACNS (Australia), and ICML-affiliated events.

Takahide Yoshida exhibited humanoid robot Alter3 at the Venice Biennale Architecture 2025 for six months, with data submitted to Royal Society Open Science.

Ryuzo Hirota’s category-theoretic presentation at the Ecological Psychology conference sparked new collaborations and an invitation to a subsequent symposium.

Nguyen Le Hoang was invited to speak at the Vietnamese Academic Network in Japan Annual Conference on emergent communication in AI.

Broader community impact

“The inspiration and management philosophy came directly from the Qualia Structure area’s culture of open, interdisciplinary discussion.”

Inspired by the area’s interdisciplinary ethos, Ryuta Kuwamizu founded the Young Researchers’ Committee of the Japanese Society of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine (February 2025). Its inaugural session at the 79th annual meeting drew over 100 participants from across subfields.

Data compiled from mid-term evaluation surveys submitted by early-career researchers and PIs, April–May 2026. This report covers activities from April 2023 to April 2026.