Opening Comments

On April 1, 2015, the Ship & Ocean Foundation--then known as the Ocean Policy Research Foundation (OPRF)--merged with The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and, as the Ocean Policy Research Institute-SPF (its current name), embarked on initiatives aimed at ocean policy, human resource development, and integrated management and sustainable development of the oceans. Its activities helped bring about the enactment of the Basic Act on Ocean Policy in 2007, which strives to reorient Japan as a maritime nation. It also played an important role as a think-tank in helping to devise and implement the twelve Basic Measures prescribed by the Basic Act on Ocean Policy.

Covering 70% of the surface of the earth, the oceans are a treasure shared among all of humanity, and one on which we depend for our survival. The Ocean Policy Research Institute (OPRI) thus aspires to become a "think-and-do-tank," to address the many challenges to the ocean and thereby achieve the mission of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation to establish a new system of ocean governance. To do so, we will expand our research and advocacy activities, disseminate relevant information, facilitate necessary measures, and promote networking opportunities. Japan cannot solve all the ocean’s problems on its own, however, which must be tackled from a global perspective through initiatives that are based on international discussion. We therefore sincerely wish to collaborate ever more closely with like-minded stakeholders who are also concerned about the oceans.