Scholars at the Birmingham Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) and Waseda University’s Institute for Asian Migrations are joining forces to study the key challenges posed by an evolving workforce. According to an 18 January article on the University of Birmingham’s website, Professor Jenny Phillimore of IRiS said: “Japan and the UK have many political, economic and social differences, yet share one major challenge: a shortage of skilled and unskilled labour. Both [countries] have resisted mass migration, but now understand that future prosperity depends on access to foreign labour”.