RENÉ HAAK joined the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, International Deparment, in 2005. Between 1999 and 2005 he was the Deputy Director and the Head of the Business and Economics Section of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, Japan. He was previously Senior Researcher at the Fraunhofer Insitute for Production and Design Technology, and Research Fellow at the Institute of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Technology at the Technical University, Berlin. He has written numerous articles and books on innovation management and production technology and HR and marketing management in Japan and Germany.
ULRIKE MARIA HAAK is an arts editor with the German television company ZDF/3sat and a journalist with special interests in the comparative study of different cultures, economics and the social sciences. From September 1999 to October 2006 Ulrike Haak worked as a foreign correspondent in Tokyo (for the newspapers Die Zeit and Der Tagesspiegel amongst others). She has produced numerous publications on intercultural and international management particularly in the context of European-Asian relations.
