Call for world’s top researchers to collaborate

A scheme to invite top academics from foreign universities to collaborate with their counterparts in Japan and contribute to world-class innovative research is adding steam to a government plan to internationalise higher education and increase the number of foreign researchers, teachers and students at Japanese institutions.

In his policy speech to the Diet or Japanese parliament last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to push ahead with the globalisation of Japanese education. Two major pillars of the plan are the strengthening of English-language proficiency among Japanese students, and increasing the number of overseas university students to 300,000 by 2020 – reviving a previous government’s pledge.

Last May, Abe said the country’s eight national universities would hire 1,500 leading researchers from around the world as a “first step” to ensure 10 Japanese universities were among the world’s top 100 within the next decade.

To encourage globally competitive research collaborations at the nation’s public universities, Japan will invite professors, associate and assistant professors and laboratory staff, including graduate students from overseas, to conduct joint research projects in Japan lasting for five to 10 years.

The programme is described by the Education Ministry as a vital opportunity for students to study under the best professors without having to go abroad. Japan has achieved high-level doctoral education in its own language.

Ready to launch

Two leading national universities, the Kyoto Institute of Technology and Hokkaido University are ready to launch programmes under the plan, supported with public funds.

The Global Institution for Collaborative Research, or GI-CoRE, will start this April under the direct control of the president of Hokkaido University, located in Japan`s snowy northern island, said Hokkaido’s Osamu Nakazaki, in charge of the new programme.

“We are putting the finishing touches to this international project that will focus on new research in the medical field, given our background as a leader in the country in medical science technology,” Nakazaki said.

Hokkaido University has created two 'global stations', each led by three professors including foreign participants, for its initial international research programme: the Global Station for Zoonosis Control. Participants from the University of Melbourne and University College Dublin will be involved while the Quantum Medical Science and Engineering group is collaborating with Stanford University researchers.

The research projects will include developing new cancer treatments using “real-time tumor tracking proton beam therapy system with molecular imaging” and will also aim to create “the world`s finest zoonosis control centre”.

Nakazaki said the university planned to expand the programme to other foreign universities “after watching progress of the new projects we have just launched”, he said.

The GI-CoRE programme is a key step in the internationalisation of Hokkaido University. In a bid to increase foreign student numbers the institution has set up a global education station to promote education in English. Its prestigious graduate school of medicine will offer five-year English courses and has also established overseas satellite education stations.

Another partner in the government’s scheme, the Kyoto Institute of Technology or KIT, which boasts highest number of students who graduated as first-class architects in 2012, is planning to collaborate with Stanford University, ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the Royal College of Art – a London-based postgraduate university.

KIT plans to offer opportunities for joint research with top Japanese companies such as Nissan Motors, Sony and Shimizu, an engineering, architecture and construction company.