About JLGC

The Japan Local Government Centre is the UK office of CLAIR - the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations. It was founded in 1989 with the support of Japan's Ministry of Home Affairs (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). CLAIR is a joint organisation of local authorities working to promote and provide support for localised internationalisation.

With its head office in Tokyo, CLAIR has branch offices in each of Japan's 47 prefectures and 14 designated cities, and also has 7 overseas offices- in Beijing, New York, Paris, Singapore, Seoul, Sydney and London. Each overseas office is responsible for a specific area; the London office covers the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

The main functions of the JLGC in London are to conduct research on local government in the UK and northern Europe, and to promote exchanges between individuals, including government officers and local government representatives, in the UK and Japan. We are also involved in implementing the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme, which employs UK graduates in the fields of international exchange and English language education in Japan.