In 1980, she obtained her postdoctoral qualification for teaching, and joined the German Research Foundation under a five-year grant with the Heisenberg Programme.
In 1993, Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit became a founding member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, received the Federal Cross of Merit of Germany in 1995 and was Director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo from 1996 to 2004.
For her services in promoting mutual understanding between German and Japanese culture she was awarded the Eugen and Ilse Seibold Prize in 2001.
She is also on the editorial board of Monumenta Nipponica and the Japan Forum, the journal of the British Association for Japanese Studies.
Inoue Yasushi Der Fälscher, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1999 (= Aru gisakka no shōgai 1951)