Both Japan and Germany as leading industrialized nations and economic powers are reliant on well-educated and motivated scientists and engineers. But it is in this area that both countries and their companies have a quantitative (not enough students choose to study these disciplines) and qualitative problem (international comparisons reveal there is still room for improvement). For this reason, education policy makers in both countries are creating support programs and initiatives to assist with this shortage.

In 2010 the JDZB in cooperation with the Free University Berlin and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) held the first conference on this topic in Berlin. All organizers were unanimous that discussions should be continued in a follow-up event in Japan.