A Message from the PRG

Tokyo being selected as the host of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games is an important opportunity for Japan to determine and clarify tasks and objectives not only for 2020, but also for Japan's long-term future.

In particular, the management of the Paralympic Games, and how to make a sports event of people with an impairment meaningful for Japan, Asia, and the global community, is a key for creating a society that is secure and safe for everyone. This is especially true for Japan as it currently faces social welfare issues that result from a demographic problem of an aging society.

In this sense, the Paralympics can be an inspiration for creating a society in which the young and the old, men and women, people with and without an impairment, Japanese and non-Japanese, can coexist in a dynamic way.

However, discussions of the Paralympics in Japan are often confined to the context of sports for people with an impairment, and Japan appears to be falling behind in the global shift in perspective that focuses on the Paralympics as a highly competitive sports event with wider social and economic implications. For Japan to join actively in this change, there is a need to seriously re-examine present and future tasks and pursue what measures need to be taken, based on academic research on Paralympic ideology, history, the current state of the Paralympics, and how Japan and its partners can be involved in the Paralympics.

With this aim, The Nippon Foundation established the Research Group on the Paralympics in June 2014, and this website on its activities. We hope to share the plans and results of the research with researchers and students interested in our work.

Kazuo Ogoura
President
The Nippon Foundation Parasports Support Center