Message from the Director

A message to everyone studying and conducting research in the graduate schools

In recent years, the situation surrounding graduate schools has been undergoing dramatic change. I believe that graduate schools are important because they are highly meaningful from the standpoint of graduate students’ academic and career development, and the time that students spent at graduate school will undoubtedly be a valuable asset for the rest of their lives. With this in mind, graduate schools are expected to provide the following. They must help students deepen their specialized knowledge and improve their research skills and career prospects while promoting networking and joint research, creating new knowledge and innovation, and improving international competitiveness. When these factors are taken together, graduate study significantly contributes not only to individual intellectual growth and career development, but also to the advancement of society and industry. To help realize these goals, the Graduate Student Career Support Center undertakes a variety of activities, focusing on three major areas.

The first is the enhancement of financial support. In order to ease the burden of tuition and other expenses, we aim to enhance our programs with external funds that do not rely on tuition fees. However, some experts have said the situation throughout Japan is critical as the number and rate of students entering doctoral programs from master's programs in recent years have both been on the decline for a variety of reasons. Some students cannot see how they can make ends meet if they enter a doctoral program, while others are worried about whether they can find a job after completing a doctoral program. In light of this, Ritsumeikan will be actively involved in government and private financial aid programs to provide living and tuition assistance to our doctoral students.

The second point relates to the acquisition of social co-creation skills and the ability to practically implement solutions in the real world. In the graduate school, supervisors provide research supervision and advice to students. This includes helping them select research topics and providing support for writing papers and presenting at conferences. The Graduate Student Career Support Center will plan an even wider array of projects to cultivate ambitious next-generation researchers who are equipped with both social co-creation skills and the ability to practically implement solutions in the real world. In particular, Ritsumeikan has a well-developed slate of graduate school programs, more than 50 research organizations, and a wide-ranging network of partners for industry-university-government collaboration. I would like to effectively tap into these resources and tie them together as we work to build interdisciplinary research and educational programs focused on solving problems.

The third is providing support to accommodate the diverse array of career paths open to doctoral students.

We aim to produce doctoral students who can solve social issues and create the society of the future by utilizing their advanced research and practical skills. It can be said that the doctoral students who will lead the next generation will need to acquire advanced practical research skills in their graduate school programs as well as the ability to practically implement solutions in the real world, namely, how to use their research to create the society of the future. In March 2024, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) compiled "Get a PhD—Doctoral Human Resources Action Plan.” There are many points in this plan that we can identify with, and it makes practical proposals relating to developing a diverse array of career paths for doctoral graduates, including but not limited to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) DC Research Fellowships, which aim to cultivate creative doctoral human resources who will play an active role in universities and other areas of academia and who will lead the future of academic research in Japan. It outlines the promotion of corporate internships, support for the creation of startups, and the development of career paths for doctoral personnel in cooperation with related ministries and agencies in various fields of the real world, including industry, international organizations, public institutions at the national and local government levels, faculty members, and research administrators (URAs). The Graduate Career Support Center intends to cooperate wholeheartedly with these efforts.

In closing, the work of the Graduate Career Path Support Center is an extremely important part of the university’s initiatives. We would be more than happy to forge ahead with all of you as you study and engage in research in our graduate schools, and we kindly request your cooperation with the Graduate Career Path Support Center.