NII International Internship Program - National Institute of Informatics

In this call, we outline the procedures for the next NII Internships to be hosted at Tokyo, once pandemic-related travel restrictions have been lifted, and NII is once again prepared to receive on-site internships.

These procedures are designed to be more flexible than our standard calls, so that NII and its partner institutions can respond more quickly to student internship requests when the appropriate time comes.

In this call, we outline the procedures for internships held on-site at NII.

Preparation of applications:

Interested students are therefore strongly advised to prepare their applications in advance, so as to minimize the time required until final approval. In particular, we recommend that you:

• Refer to the list of available research topics. Interested students are encouraged to check this list regularly, since topics may be added or withdrawn at any time. Questions regarding any of these topics should be directed to the NII project supervisor who proposed them. For other questions, please contact your home institution or the NII International Team.
• Consult your supervisor and your home institution as to their own internal procedures for handling applications, and inform them of your intention to apply.
• Familiarize yourself with the Japanese visa conditions that pertain to you. Note that for citizens of most countries, an internship stay of 90 days or more requires a Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) from the Japanese government, which takes up to 3 months to obtain.
• Although in principle NII Internship projects could potentially serve in fulfillment of the candidates' degree requirements at their home institutions, this is not guaranteed by NII. Students seeking an internship at NII in fulfillment of their own institution's degree requirements (such as a co-supervised Master's project or other project) should consult their supervisor before applying. Please note that any formal co-supervision arrangements must be negotiated directly with prospective NII supervisors beforesubmitting their NII Internship applications.

Application deadline:

Once NII has informed your institute that it is ready to accept internships applications, you may lodge your application.

Candidates

• Choose up to three topics out of the list of available research projects.
• Fill out the NII International Internship Program application form.
• Attach your CV, indicating clearly any and all past employment and educational history.
• Submit your application through the contact person designated by your home institution. Candidates may not submit their applications directly to NII.
• Before lodging your application, we recommend you to have made e-mail contact with each NII supervisor whose research projects you are applying for.

Please note that the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) maintains a list of foreign entities with which it has security concerns. Candidates currently or formerly associated with institutions or companies on this list will be subject to additional screening, which could result in their being deemed inadmissible to the program.

Partner institutions

• Over the course of the current combined call for NII Internships (on-line and hosted at Tokyo), your home institution may propose to NII a total of at most four different students meeting the institution's best standards of academic performance and research potential.
• Students wishing to apply for both an on-line internship and an on-site internship may do so. Although they would count as one applicant towards the limit of four, they must nevertheless submit two applications: one for each type of internship.
• For this call, your home institution is encouraged to forward applications to NII as they are received. However, your institution may choose to accumulate applications for a certain period before forwarding a ranked list of candidates.
• Note that NII researchers may not necessarily give priority to the top-ranked candidates when deciding which interns they are willing to supervise. Other reasons for non-selection could include the ineligibility of a candidate due to government restrictions, competitive selection, or other limits on the total number of interns that NII is prepared to receive.

Final evaluation:

At the end of their internship, students are expected to submit an NII International Internship Program Report outlining the outcomes of their project. In writing their reports, interns should take care to respect any restrictions on confidential information or on intellectual property that may have been required by NII or their home institution. After the completion of the internship period and the submission of their report, NII will issue a certificate of completion.

Time frame:

For this call, we encourage students to end their stay before March 31st, 2026. The duration of the internship should be also discussed with NII supervisors. The internship activities should be for a period of 60 to 180 days excluding traveling days. A minimum of 2 months stay is compulsory.

Visa application procedure will be instructed to the successful candidates after the selection.