Kyushu University: 100 years of excellence

Japan is going through an exciting time at the moment. In a period of global economic recession, Japan is making the difficult choice to reorient its economy with this economic paradigm, Abenomics, which is making "once in a generation reform" As Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said. Can Abenomics succeed without a more globalized, international, educational sector to support it? 

Under Abenomics, Japan's economy is now at a stage of improvement. I think that in order to continue that improvement it is imperative that we increase the globalization of our education and become more innovative. International interaction and exchanges will be crucial, and Kyushu University is working with that in mind. We are in the process of establishing programs to promote further globalization. I also think that in order to promote economic growth through Abenomics the educational sector is going to be absolutely critical.

The education sector itself is going through a transformation and there are three main elements to this: foreign language education, the internationalization through partnerships and faculty exchanges of Japanese universities as well as strengthening of Japan’s identity for your students. How are you implementing programs with these three elements and what are the biggest challenges that Kyushu faces in this strive to internationalization? 

We are facing a number of challenges, but one of the biggest is that we do not yet have an adequate system in place for teaching in English. Another challenge for us is that the school year runs from April to March, so we need to be able to match the semester and quarter system calendars of other countries. We also do not yet have the infrastructure in place to accommodate as many foreign exchange students as we would like, and there are also difficulties in handling areas such as international journal articles. We are hoping that through our new campus we will be able to promote more globalization in these areas, which will be a key point of action for us. One of the things we are concentrating on is to provide more English only instruction for foreign students. We are creating a system to do this, and we plan to be able to provide such instruction in the near future. Five years ago the Ministry of Education introduced the Global 30 project, which has increased the number of exchange students from overseas. Our planning for the future is based on the Global 30 project.

Kyushu University has a rich history of over 100 years, contributing in three distinct fields of education, research and health care. Can you give our US audience a bit of a background of this impressive history and how you've become one of the leading universities?

The university was established in 1903 as a medical university. In 1911, we added an Engineering department, then over the next 15 years other departments, such as Agriculture, Law, and Literature, were added. In 2003 we added an Art faculty, so we have a total of 11 faculties at the university. We are attempting to cultivate students who can go out and be active in the international sphere, especially in research. We have a strong focus on the medical component, which is working toward the globalization of hospitals, particularly by developing Internet based partnerships with other Asian institutions. Including graduate students, we have a total of about 20,000 students.

MEXT has launched an ambitious campaign, the Super Global 30, to fund Japan's top universities in order to double the amount of Japanese universities that are in the top 100 globally from currently five to ten in a decade, with an emphasis on attracting international professors and partnerships from prestigious international universities. Of course Kyushu University was chosen as one of the top 13 universities to receive over 420 million JYP per year to achieve this. Can you outline your intentions for this program? Will Kyushu be within the global 100 soon?

In order to promote the university as part of the Super Global Program we have four main pillar strategies:  The globalization of education, the globalization of research, government reforms, and reputation management. For the globalization of education, we have established a new International Arts[VS1]  and Science Department that will become active in 2017. It will have about a hundred students and they will be taught only in English. In terms of the globalization of research, we will be focusing on having more journal articles published in English and on participating in [VS2] more international academic societies. As I said previously, we plan to increase our efforts toward globalization. One way of doing that will be to send staff members overseas for experience. For reputation management, we want to take our level of appraisal overseas to new heights.

In this drive to more international recognition, Kyushu University counts with many distinguished alumni and faculty members, such as Dr. Mitarai Namiko, who just received Japan’s Young Scientist Prize by MEXT for her groundbreaking research. Are you working to promote your graduates and their accomplishments as maybe testimonials as you look to improve your international recognition?

Yes, Kyushu University has many graduates who have produced outstanding results. In terms of reputation management, we want to use the programs I previously mentioned to strategically promote our graduates and their accomplishments. Reputation management is a concept that is not well established in Japan, and is something that we have created as part of our Super Global effort. The U.K. is quite advanced in this concept, so we plan to invite experts to Japan and to cooperate with them in implementing our program of reputation management.

Internationalization is not just about attracting students to Japan but also sending your Japanese students internationally to have more globalized perspective.  What initiatives do you have to incentive your students to study abroad?

We do want to have more students go overseas. I think that is an extremely important aspect of our program. As you know, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” so... for them to actually go and experience things overseas is incredibly important. We have an office in California, and we send our undergraduates there for three to four weeks. This is a system that we are putting in place that we think is very important. Of course, we also want international students to come to Japan. We have about 2,000 exchange students at Kyushu University who take the full program and about 300 who come on a short-term basis.

The new campus plays a very vital role in Kyushu's educational efforts and its commitment to building a sustainable society and solving problems for Japan's future. One of the aspirations for this campus is to study next generation energy systems for Japan. Why is this so important to Kyushu overall success and development?

Among the central pillars in our program, one thing that we feel strongly about is  working closely with people in the community to solve the many issues we face. We have a world-class program in carbon neutral energy. We are doing cutting edge research into hydrogen, notably research into fuel cells. We have already built a prototype hydrogen car.  We have many projects related to natural energy, which we are  developing in cooperation with the community and business. We see the promotion of a sustainable environment as a crucial part of our program. 

Probably, being one of the leading universities in energy and hydrocarbon would be enough for other university but you also have one of the most advanced healthcare institutions in Japan as well. How important is Kyushu's role in this regard, to lessen Japan severe demographics’ problem?

Yes, we are involved in many aspects of advanced medicine. We are especially looking at maternal and child healthcare and, as you said, the elderly as a percentage of the population is increasing. Our focuses include geriatric and lifestyle diseases, so we are researching and promoting healthy habits to the community, things like diet, exercise, and sleep: How these elements work together; how we can prevent disease through these elements. We have recently begun research into relation between genetics and the environment. 

How important are the cultural and educational research exchanges that Kyushu does with American universities to contribute to the development of economic and diplomatic relations?

I think that the relationship between the US and Japan is extremely important, and continuing to develop that relationship in the future will be critical. It will be the basis of everything that we are doing. Collaboration in these kinds of programs is extremely important. We are working with the University of Maryland on an exchange program involving cyber security.  We currently have exchange programs with 22 universities. This is something that we intend to pursue even more actively in the future. 

In this globalized world the importance for countries and institutions to brand themselves and to communicate their strengths can never be overstated. How would you like Americans to perceive Japan's education sector and Kyushu University?

I think Japan's culture and European and Western culture are different in a number of aspects. In Japan, we place great value modesty so we have a hard time promoting ourselves. Within Japan's culture, I think it is very important for us to express to other people what we are doing and who we are.  It is very important that we go to other countries, especially to the U.S., to expose them to our culture, our science, and our education, but I also hope that Americans will come to Japan in large numbers so that they can experience and better understand Japan's culture and point of view. Through these kinds of interactions Japan's vision, from both inside and outside, will come to change.