Tobisawa Institute is a privately established and independent research organisation dedicated to the study of diplomacy, international security, and global governance.

Launched in 2025, the Tobisawa Institute is an independent research organisation based in Tokyo. It builds on more than fifteen years of UK–Japan academic collaboration linking the University of Buckingham with several Japanese institutions of higher education, for which Dr Kazuhiro Tobisawa has taken the lead in developing and coordinating the Japan side of the partnership. The Institute now provides an institutional home for this work, focusing on diplomacy, international security, and the development of an “ethical realist” approach to global governance.

Operating outside governmental, corporate, and advocacy structures, the Institute maintains a distinctive intellectual autonomy. This independence enables sustained inquiry into strategic, institutional, and normative dimensions of international affairs that are often difficult to pursue within formal policy environments.

The Institute’s work emphasises analytical clarity, historical awareness, and a careful engagement with practice, rather than advocacy or ideological positioning.