Press Releases

Kurita Water Industries ("Kurita"; Head Office: Nakano-ku, Tokyo; President: Michiya Kadota) today announced that it had sponsored the 20th Japan Science & Engineering Challenge ("JSEC2022"), a free-study research contest in science and engineering hosted by The Asahi Shimbun Company and TV Asahi Corporation; and had presented the "Kurita Water Industries Award" for excellent research into water and the environment.

The Japan Science & Engineering Challenge ("JSEC") is a free-study research contest in science and engineering for high school and technical college students all over Japan. It has been held since 2003 with the aim of improving the level of science and engineering by contributing to the promotion of education in the fields of science and engineering. The contest calls for entries consisting of research from a wide range of fields, with awards being given for the best entries based on document and presentation-based screenings by expert judges. Kurita supports and endorses the purport of JSEC activities, and has sponsored the contest since 2019 as one aspect of human resources development as part of its corporate citizenship activities.

For JSEC2022, the 20th installment of the competition, a total of 339 entries were received from high schools and technical colleges throughout Japan. After preliminary and primary screening processes, the final screening was held at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) over the course of two days (December 10 and December 11). The entrant selected as the winner of the Kurita Water Industries Award was Ms. Sasara Mizutani of Tokyo Metropolitan Koishikawa Secondary Education School, for her research project "Development of a Method for Measuring and Visualizing the Concentration of Aerosol Particles Using Flame Photometry." The winner of this award and other top-ranking winners from JSEC2022 are scheduled to represent Japan at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), to be held in May 2023. In addition, like last year, a virtual 3D JSEC venue was created online. Kurita used this platform to display content, including educational content entitled "Kurita Sustainable Water Tour," which introduces global problems relating to water resources and the role of water treatment technologies in resolving them.

Moving forward, as a secondary prize to the main award, Kurita plans to hold an exchange meeting between the award winners and Kurita Group researchers. By providing opportunities to hear directly from researchers about R&D activities at companies, Kurita hopes to lend a helping hand in future research activities and career planning for award winners.

The Kurita Group will continue to focus on the development of the next generation as one of the key areas of its corporate citizenship activities, and in doing so will contribute to achieving the creation of a sustainable society.