NII International Internship 2026: funded research in Japan with ¥5,700 a day
皆さん、こんにちは！(Hello everyone!)
If you do graduate research in computer science, AI, data systems, or digital humanities, a residency in Tokyo sounds great until you price it out. Central Tokyo rent, flights, and daily costs drain a student budget fast, and getting into a closed Japanese research network is its own problem. The National Institute of Informatics (NII) International Internship removes most of that. It funds a structured residency for Master’s and PhD students from partner universities, pays a daily stipend, and helps with the visa, housing, and lab setup.
This guide covers the money, who qualifies, the research on offer, the exact application route, and the real logistics of living in Tokyo on the stipend.
Who runs it, and the infrastructure you get
NII sits under the Research Organisation of Information and Systems, an inter-university research institute. It is Japan’s only comprehensive research institute dedicated entirely to informatics, bridging foundational theory and practical systems engineering for the whole academic community. Knowing its priorities helps you aim your proposal.
The infrastructure is the draw. NII builds and runs SINET6, a nationwide 400 Gbps academic backbone connecting over a thousand universities and research sites, with ultra-high-speed international lines to the US, Amsterdam, Singapore, and Guam. Interns in the networking divisions use it for beyond-5G, edge AI, and distributed computing, moving data between Japan, the US, and Europe with low latency.
NII also sits at the front of AI work through its Research and Development Centre for Large Language Models. The LLM-jp project released a 172-billion-parameter open-source Japanese model, trained from scratch on a curated corpus of over 12 trillion tokens. Interns work alongside the people building these models. Live projects include evaluating the LLM-jp-4 series (a Qwen3 Mixture-of-Experts architecture) and generating synthetic data for safety alignment with datasets like AnswerCarefully.
Beyond AI, NII houses research centres for Quantum Information Science, Synthetic Media, and Open Science. The Research Centre for Open Science and Data Platform runs GakuNin RDM, CiNii Research, and JAIRO Cloud, a full ecosystem for research data governance. Few places concentrate this much infrastructure in one building.
The program parameters
Read these constraints before you apply, because they shape everything.
Duration. The internship runs 60 to 165 days, excluding travel days. The two-month minimum is enforced so you contribute something real to the host lab. You stay physically present at the Tokyo headquarters for the whole period. Private travel, long vacations, or remote work from outside Japan before, during, or right after the internship are restricted and generally not allowed under the visa and institutional terms. If you join the 2026 second call, you generally start after 15 March 2027.
Research scope. The work falls into four divisions: Principles of Informatics (theory, algorithms, mathematical modelling), Information Systems Architecture (networking, cloud, hardware), Digital Content and Media Sciences (NLP, computer vision, machine learning), and Information and Society (digital humanities, crisis informatics, privacy). You do not propose a random topic. You pick up to three from the official topic list released with each call. Typical projects include automated verification of probabilistic programs, theoretical foundations of graph neural networks, parameterised complexity algorithms, and energy-efficient edge AI. Your project counts toward your degree at home (a Master’s thesis, say) with prior coordination between your home supervisor and the Japanese host.
What the money covers, and what it does not
The support covers living costs in Tokyo. It is not a salary.
You get a daily sojourn allowance of ¥5,700, about ¥171,000 a month, paid in cash at the admin office. The first payment comes shortly after you arrive, then monthly on a schedule.
What it does not cover matters too. NII does not pay your round-trip airfare, so you fund flights yourself, often through a grant from your home university. On insurance, NII provides a basic overseas travel policy covering ordinary medical costs for injury and illness up to ¥3,000,000, but not pre-existing conditions, dental, vaccinations, or lost baggage. And if you stay over three months, you must enroll in Japan’s National Health Insurance, around ¥1,000 to ¥2,000 a month, paid from your stipend at your local ward office.
Daily life and logistics
NII is in the National Centre of Sciences building in Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, central Tokyo, a few minutes from Takebashi and Jimbocho stations. Jimbocho is Tokyo’s historic book town, so the setting is convenient and culturally rich. Inside the building you get computing facilities, an informatics library, a student lounge, and a subsidised cafeteria.
Housing is your highest cost. A furnished short-term apartment or share house in Tokyo runs ¥60,000 to ¥90,000 a month depending on location and subway access. The Global Liaison Office gives accepted candidates a curated list of trusted agencies such as Sakura House, Oakhouse, JAF Plaza, and Fujimi House. One warning: many agencies want rent by credit card or international transfer, so the cash stipend alone will not always secure your first contract. Expect around ¥1,000 for a lunch set locally and subway fares from ¥160 a ride.
How to apply, step by step
The process is specific, and it runs through your home university. Because the program works under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) framework, direct applications from individual students get discarded immediately.
Step 1: Check eligibility and internal deadlines. You must be a currently enrolled Master’s or PhD student at a university with an active MOU with NII. Students who already hold a PhD are not eligible. Partner universities (TU Wien, Aalto, University of Alberta, TU Munich, and others) run their own internal screening, with internal deadlines weeks before the official one. Find the academic contact at your university who handles the exchange and confirm the internal dates. For 2026, these varied: TU Wien set 1 April 2026 (first call) and 16 October 2026 (second call), TU Munich set 18 October 2026 for the second call, and Aalto and KTH set 8 October and 15 October. The official NII deadlines are 10 April 2026 (first call) and 23 October 2026 (second call).
Step 2: Pick your research targets. Review the official PDF topic list for the call, then select up to three projects and rank them. Be realistic about your skills. Principles of Informatics projects often require an advanced maths background or publications in specific theory venues, while networking projects want strong Python, C++, or MATLAB.
Step 3: Email potential supervisors. Before any formal paperwork, write to the supervisors behind your chosen topics. This is the most important phase. Introduce your background, attach your CV, and explain why your skills fit their current work. An informal letter of consent or an encouraging reply sharply raises your chances, and many home universities will not process your application without evidence of this contact.
Step 4: Assemble the dossier. The core document is the official application form, usually an Excel file. Add a detailed CV covering all education and employment, along with academic transcripts for each year of your Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD coursework. Some universities also want a motivation letter or a study progress plan showing how the internship fits your graduation timeline.
Step 5: Submit internally. Send the complete dossier to your home university’s designated contact before the internal deadline.
Step 6: Nomination. Your university ranks its applicants and forwards up to three to the Global Liaison Office in Tokyo. Universities with their own funding, such as Erasmus+ grants, get a larger nomination quota.
How candidates are evaluated
Once dossiers arrive, selection is competitive. Supervisors review first, then the Global Liaison Office and the board make the final call.
The main criterion is academic excellence plus exact technical fit with the supervisor’s goals. Being ranked first by your home university does not guarantee acceptance. If you lack the specific programming or theoretical background the lab needs right now, you get passed over.
The second criterion is security regulation. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry runs export control protocols and a watch list of foreign institutions tied to security concerns. If you are currently or formerly affiliated with a university or centre on that list, you are subject to extra screening, which delays the process and sometimes renders you inadmissible regardless of your record.
The key numbers
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Stipend | ¥5,700/day (about ¥171,000/month), paid in cash |
| Duration | 60 to 165 days (excluding travel days) |
| Who | Master's and PhD students at an MOU partner university |
| Location | National Centre of Sciences, Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo |
| Airfare | Not covered; fund flights yourself |
| Insurance | Basic travel cover to ¥3,000,000; NHI required if over 3 months |
| Visa | Cultural Activities visa (no outside paid work) |
| 2026 NII deadlines | First call 10 April 2026; second call 23 October 2026 |
| Application route | Through your home university; direct applications rejected |
| Partners | 116+ international institutions |
FAQs: Your Questions Answered
Q1. Am I eligible if I already have my PhD?
No. The rules are strict on this. If you have been awarded your PhD, you lose eligibility. The program is only for currently enrolled Master’s and PhD students, and you must keep active enrollment at your home university for the whole internship. Post-docs should look at the MOU Grant program for visiting researchers instead.
Q2. How does the visa work?
Once accepted, the Global Liaison Office applies to the Japanese Immigration Bureau for your Certificate of Eligibility. When it arrives, you take it to your nearest Japanese embassy or consulate to get the visa. The category is usually the Cultural Activities visa, which bars paid work outside the fellowship. The certificate and visa together take over a month, so do not buy non-refundable flights until the visa is in hand.
Q3. What if my university has no agreement with NII?
Then this track is closed to you. The Global Liaison Office works with 116-plus partners, and if your university is not on the list, you are not eligible. You would need your international relations office to approach NII about a new agreement, which takes real negotiation and will not happen within one application call.
Q4. Is the internship available remotely?
No. The 2026 guidelines set this as on-site and in-person. The whole value is physical integration into the Tokyo lab, using on-site infrastructure like SINET6 and working face to face with the team. Remote work happened during past health crises, but current rules require your presence in Japan. Only a threat to your life or safety would trigger emergency repatriation and a shift online.
Q5. What do I have to do before leaving Japan?
The exit is governed by strict reporting. Before your final day, clean your workspace and return your ID card, which doubles as the electronic key for the labs and library. Most importantly, write and submit a formal Internship Program Report covering your methods, findings, and experience. NII issues your Certificate of Completion only after this report is approved. Skipping it, or breaking institutional rules during your stay, ends the internship and forfeits your final stipend.
Conclusion: Where to start
The NII International Internship is one of the more accessible ways into Japan’s computer science and data infrastructure. The ¥5,700 a day takes the financial pressure off living in central Tokyo, so you put your focus on the research. But it rewards planning, not last-minute applications. You need to network early to get a supervisor’s consent, align your proposal with NII’s priorities, and coordinate cleanly with your home university.
For the 2026 cohorts, start now. Read the official research topics, find the supervisors whose work fits yours, and draft your first email. Internal university nomination windows close fast, so the sooner you move, the better your odds of a place.
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