JPP is a project of the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities, which Mr. Yanai supported in 2014 as a joint project of UCLA and Waseda University with a gift of $2.5 million, then endowed in 2020 with an additional $25 million donation. newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/25-...

After 3 years of development by Michael Emmerich (Director) and Paula R. Curtis (Operations Leader), and many collaborators, JPP launched in March 2024. It has since worked tirelessly to build global partnerships with scholars, publishers, and institutions supporting work on Japan.