Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Slavic-Eurasian Research Center is a scholarly institute at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, specializing in research on the post-Soviet states and their inhabitants across Eurasia. It publishes two journals, Acta Slavica Iaponica and Slavic Studies.
The center's origins trace to the 24th of June 1953, when scholars at Hokkaido University agreed to coordinate their work in Soviet and Communist studies. It was formally constituted as a Slavic Institute on the 1st of June 1955, incorporated within the university's Faculty of Law.
On the 1st of April 2014, the Slavic Research Center was renamed the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center in recognition of the geopolitical changes that followed the end of communism in Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union. The center described these changes as 'obviating the validity of Communist studies.'
Named participants in the Foreign Visitors Fellowship Program include Norman Davies, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Tomasz Kamusella, Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, Stephen Kotkin, Vladislav Krasnov, Taras Kuzio, David Marples, Vojtech Mastny, Alexander Nekrich, Sabrina Ramet, Jadwiga Staniszkis, and Jerzy Tomaszewski. The program has welcomed tens of scholars from outside Japan since it was launched in 1978.
The Slavic-Eurasian Research Center operates through six research divisions: Russian Studies, Siberian and Far Eastern Studies, Central Eurasian Studies, East European Studies, Comparative Studies, and the Eurasian Unit for Border Research.
In 2018, the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center had active research partnerships with 27 universities and research institutes across Eurasia. This network is supported through the center's Foreign Visitors Fellowship Program, which has operated since 1978.