Akira Kurimoto is the Senior Fellow of the Japan Co-operative Alliance and the Chair of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) Research Committee. He serves as a member of the ICA Co-operative Identity Advisory Group and the Steering Committee of the ICA World Co-operative Monitor. He studied law at the University of Tokyo. He was a professor at the Institute for Solidarity-based Society at Hosei University, Tokyo 2015-2020. He was the board member/chief researcher of the Consumer Co-operative Institute, Japan and the general secretary of the Robert Owen Association. He edited a number of volumes including The Emergence of Global Citizenship: Utopian Ideas, Co-operative Movements and the Third Sector (2005) and Toward Contemporary Co-operative Studies: Perspectives from Japan's Consumer Co-ops (2010). He is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Co-operative Research Partnership which published Waking the Asian Pacific Co-operative Potential in 2020.