The Nereus Program is a global interdisciplinary initiative between the Nippon Foundation and the University of British Columbia that was created to further our knowledge of how best to attain sustainability for our world’s oceans. In addition to the Nippon Foundation and UBC, the program partners with University of Cambridge, Duke University, Princeton University, Stockholm University, United Nations Environment Program-World Conservation Monitoring Centre and Utrecht University. The program is built around three core objectives: to conduct collaborative ocean research across the natural and social sciences, to develop an interdisciplinary network of experts that can engage in discussion of complex and multifaceted questions of ocean sustainability, and to transfer these ideas to practical solutions in global policy forums.

The Nippon Foundation of Tokyo, Japan, is a private, non-profit grant-making organization. It was established in 1962 by Ryoichi Sasakawa. The foundation's mission is to direct Japanese motorboat racing revenue into philanthropic activities, it uses this money to pursue global maritime development and assistance for humanitarian work, both at home and abroad. In the humanitarian field, it focuses on such fields as social welfare, public health, and education. The foundation has also been criticized for promoting Japanese historical revisionism, particularly in whitewashing Japanese war crimes committed in World War II.