National Comprehensive Excellence in Northern Japan

Japan today is facing a number of challenges including a lack of labor force globalization in comparison to other countries. Additionally, with Japan’s decline in population, there is increased pressure on the global workforce. It is estimated that in 2040, Japan will face a shortfall of 10 million workers. To try to address this challenge, the government is setting ambitious targets of attracting over 400,000 students from overseas to Japan to study. What role do you believe Japanese colleges can play in trying to address these challenges that Japan is facing?

In this context, the role that a university plays is obvious. Through education and research we will boost labor productivity at an individual level as well as an industrial level. To play that role, we need to provide education that will change the mindsets of our Japanese students so that they become more active and creative. There are two main things we need to do. First of all, we must help students understand that there are various diverse views that they will come across through globalization. We also need to educate a new mindset that will prompt them to start new businesses on their own. Furthermore, we need to provide some practical education to help boost their abilities to resolve issues that cannot be supplemented by new technologies such as AI. At the same time, we need to provide recurrent or ongoing education that will help people of any age shift to different career paths. I personally would like to place more importance on shifting the mindset. The reason why is that it is closely linked to the smaller number of business startups in Japan when compared to other nations like the US.

At the entrance ceremony every year, I always call on students to not wait until they finish school to start something they really want to do. On the research side, universities can drive innovation that would in turn, increase productivity of Japanese industries. Regional universities such as ours are required to boost the DX of regional industries.

A student taking an oath at the Yamagata University Entrance Ceremony for the 2024 Academic Year

Yamagata University Graduation Ceremony for the 2023 Academic Year

Our university can play a role in the development of green transformation technologies, which in turn would enable industries to become more environmentally sustainable. On top of basic research into humanities and natural sciences, it is also very important to change the inherent assets of the region such as culture and nature into content that would be appreciated globally, which I believe would prompt investment from outside of the region.

We believe that it is important to attract more foreign students to Japanese universities in order to drive creativity in various industries. Of course, increasing the labor force is important, but I believe creativity is more paramount. The Japanese community at large is becoming more uniform, and while it has resulted in unique cultures, at the same time it has had an effect on innovation. By bringing more international students, you are essentially adding new flavors to the cultural melting pot, creating a nation that is dynamic and able to adapt to the new modern world.

Japan should be an attractive place for students to come, yet the numbers show it isn’t reaching its potential. It has world-class facilities and education, with an ever-increasing availability of English language courses and programs. If we look at the total number of international students, it is at about 5%, quite low compared to the UK and the US at between 20-30%. You said that Japanese universities need to focus on attracting these international students. Are there any particular ways you think that universities should be doing this? Are there any strategies you’ve implemented at your university to attract more foreign students to study here?

A huge added value that Japanese universities can provide is safety and the current favorable economy. Safety doesn’t necessarily mean only security. By safety, I also mean academic freedom since Japan is not very susceptible to the impact of regional conflicts. Students can freely learn and pursue interests without percussion. This freedom is very important for international students coming from certain countries. I never used to think about this topic, but after seeing what is happening in the US over the Gaza Strip; well the idea struck me.

Students coming to Japan can acquire a high level of education at a relatively low tuition price. International students studying in Japan also now benefit from the weakened JPY. Although some universities are located in regional areas, they are competitive in certain research domains. Such universities will also give students an advantage in job hunting in those fields.

There are specific changes we need to implement in order to increase our attractiveness to foreign students. First of all, we need to increase the number of curriculums that can be taught in languages other than Japanese. In our undergraduate program in the Faculty of Education and Faculty of Science, some classes are taught in English. This will help us deepen our relations with certain countries. While English is important, just translating Japanese programs into English is not sufficient. We need to modify the existing Japanese program into one that is attractive to international students. Our region still maintains a traditional Japanese lifestyle, one that harmonizes with nature. I believe that this lifestyle is attractive to foreigners and something they respect. While we as Japanese people harmonize with nature, we also suffer from natural disasters regularly. This has evolved into Japanese people developing disaster prevention methods and technologies. This country possesses a lot of wisdom on how to survive the harshness of nature. We offer students opportunities to get hands-on experience in this regard. With this in mind, we need to organize our curriculum in a way that would be attractive to foreign students. Such programs can be offered through different faculties but in different ways. A common goal however is to foster talent who can shoulder the responsibility for sustainable development.

In regard to the challenges that regional universities face, I will talk a little bit about that now. In our convenience store on campus, we recently started selling halal food 2-3 times a week. We would like to offer this more often, but the number of suppliers is limited. To deal with that, the university needs to show a grand plan to increase the number of international students, which will contribute to the rising regional economy. Then we would invite investment from the public and private sectors. Our university has written a proposal to the government to make that happen.

There are three things we believe we need to do to increase the number of foreign faculty members. Firstly, increase the research fund, secondly, provide good research facilities, and thirdly, performance-based remuneration. Right now, we understand the importance of these three factors, but we don’t have the funds to cover them. The Japanese government insists that it is providing ample funds for science and technology promotion, but compared to other developed countries, the total sum is much smaller. We’ve asked the government to provide more funds, but the situation hasn’t changed. It requires regional universities like ourselves to source funds elsewhere.

One of the real criticisms levied at the Japanese system is that there isn’t enough support for international students post-graduation, particularly in navigating Japan’s confusing and complicated job market. Fortunately, in Yamagata, you can benefit from a number of industrial clusters with large companies looking to hire foreign students. Additionally, you have your own career advice service as part of your model. Could you tell us about some of the success you’ve seen in helping international students find employment here in Japan?

At Yamagata university, we offer learning opportunities on Japanese social norms and business practices, organize company visits, and facilitate internship programs with local businesses to support the employment of international students. As a result, highly skilled international graduates are finding employment in the manufacturing industry in Yamagata. We are committed to expanding this support for international students, but achieving this goal requires gaining the support and understanding of stakeholders.

Yamagata University and other national universities are funded by taxpayer money. It is really important therefore to have an understanding of the necessity to increase the number of students by changing the academic system. It requires a change of mindset from stakeholders rather than just changing the system.

The reason why internationalization is required by Yamagata University is because we’ve found that students are inward-looking, not outward-looking. I think this is an issue among all Japanese universities. It might have been caused by the decades of recession, but still, we really want our students to be interested in what is going on around the world. There are times throughout their lives when they will need to make critical decisions at an individual or social level. Schools and universities will help them to make the right decisions when the time comes, but at that time, they need to be aware of who they are from a global standpoint in order to make those right decisions. Yamagata University is in a regional area that is less globalized than cities like Tokyo, and this fact is something we always need to be aware of. The focus of management is to internationalize in order to increase the assets and resources available to the university. Typically, the funds that a Japanese university can raise are on par with the size of the regional economy. To overcome the size issue, we are pushing for globalization and expanding the scope of engagement.

Are you looking to increase the number of MOUs or relationships you have with international academic partners?

Not really right now. We aren’t looking to expand the number of MOUs we have, rather we want to deepen the ones we’ve already established. In terms of academic partnerships, the collaborators are not necessarily limited to universities. As an example of collaboration beyond universities, I would like to introduce our medical school's initiative. I believe that the advanced medical technology at Japanese universities contributes to the internationalization of our country. Our university hospital has been operating a world-class heavy ion therapy center for cancer treatment since 2020. It is now one of the most advanced treatment facilities in the world and has now even begun accepting patients from outside of Japan. We even have a MOU with a major hospital in Thailand. Personnel exchange programs are underway with multiple universities and hospitals outside of Japan.

I would now like to talk to you about some of the attractive points of Yamagata University in terms of international students. In particular, we believe our programs and research into organic materials can be very attractive to prospective students. The research we run on organic materials is world-class and the students are able to run their research in a very advanced facility. Additionally, they are given instructions from the world’s top-level researchers. Doctoral students are receiving financial support for their living expenses as well as research funds. Students also have opportunities to experience on-the-job training at companies inside a local consortium. After graduation, oftentimes students are able to land jobs at big companies with leading-edge technologies. As mentioned earlier, we have a program to support international students in landing jobs after graduation. Part of this program includes lectures with career advice as well as bus tours of companies in Yamagata prefecture. We also provide internship programs by partnering with local companies.

To make our university attractive to faculty members, we must address the issue of remuneration. The number of such people is very limited, and in the past world-class researchers received higher remuneration. We have implemented a system of performance-based salaries, but from our understanding, other universities have introduced the same system, so it is difficult to differentiate ourselves. The university has invested capital into making the facilities attractive to researchers, particularly our organic materials science research facilities. As a result of this investment, we have brought in several faculty members. In a sense, our efforts have seen results.

You’ve spoken today about the need to attract foreign students and faculty members alike, but you’ve also spoken about Yamagata prefecture, a very regional base for a university. This has the benefits of being so close to nature, but also the drawbacks of being away from big cities like Tokyo. Could you give us some insight into the profile of foreign students that you think would be most attracted to come here to study or work here as faculty members?

It may not be widely known, but Yamagata Prefecture is home to many outstanding manufacturing industries that, despite their small scale, hold a significant global market share. Therefore, for international students who are eager to learn about Japan's advanced technology, Yamagata will be an attractive location.

I think we are mostly talking about people from other Asian countries. Oftentimes, they come from a personal relationship with the professors of Yamagata University. Our relationship with foreign universities themselves is based on trust. For example, we had a student from Myanmar who went back and became a university teacher. Some countries however do place barriers in place due to fear of brain drain. Trust is a very important factor.

Clearly your university values the idea of developing the skills of foreign students before they return to their home countries.

For the past five years, 251 international students have graduated from our university. About 30% of those students have landed jobs in Japan. 23% have pursued further studies in our graduate school, with 9% of those students landing jobs in Yamagata. I think the issue is that Japanese companies that want to hire international students compete with each other. We want to meet the demands by increasing the population of international graduates. A target of around 30% has been discussed among presidents of national universities. There are numerous success stories, including a highly skilled graduate who found a job in a local Yamagata manufacturing company and they are still active in their R&D department.

We’ve seen a growing demand among Yamagata companies to hire foreign students. I think that our program has been working well so far. On the other hand, some international students want to secure jobs with higher salaries in their home countries. A partner university in Indonesia, for example, has sent 161 students to us so far. 25 of these students have now become faculty members at Indonesian universities. We are proud of the program that we have delivered to international students because they have found success not only in Japan but in their home countries as well.

Recently, there was a restructuring of your Graduate School of Science and Engineering to create a new major. The idea, from our understanding is to create graduates that are prepared to deal with new technologies. Not only is this split between two campuses but there are opportunities for students and working professionals to become involved in the changing digital landscape. How do the curriculum, the instructors, and the researchers remain up to date with the latest advancements and react to rapid changes?

We need to change the content of what we teach and how students learn. Basically we are looking to introduce an element of gamification to the curriculum, something I personally really enjoy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese universities have online lessons for students, and one thing that struck me was the basic question, “Do students need to come to the campus to take lessons?” My answer was yes and no.

Face-to-face learning is important to increase communication skills. If the goal is just to gain knowledge, then online lessons might be better since they can transcend location or time. With our current curriculum, students need to come to the campus almost every day, but moving forward, I think we will need to embrace online classes as a way of giving students more opportunities, particularly when they are away from the campus. I want students to develop the attitude that is suited to dealing with real-world issues, not just knowledge.

In April 2025, we will establish our new School of Collaborative Regional Innovation and Data Science, the first to be established in 50 years at the undergraduate level. To formulate this new school, we are going to match part of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences with the Faculty of Education, Arts, and Sciences. The aim is to develop personnel who can contribute to innovative solutions and entrepreneurship as a core. Since it is a difficult curriculum, we are starting with just 30 students for the first year, and we believe that graduates will be highly evaluated by society. Once this is in place, we will then expand the school.

Another aspect is lifelong learning, and it is important for universities to provide opportunities for these kinds of people. I used to be the campus manager, and during my time in that position, I started a system called the Extension Learning System because I believed that lifelong learning would become a core service of our business. We provide these services to companies at their request, and an upcoming class in August 2024 will cover financial literacy. We also cover other topics, such as DX and AI.

LLMs or Language Learning Modules include such AI services as Copilot, Grok, and ChatGPT. They are presenting a huge challenge to higher learning institutions, and there are now many opportunities for students to cheat the system. However, there are also opportunities for learning institutions to complement learning with these LLMs, becoming a very useful tool for educators and learners. Could you comment on LLMs and how you think they can be integrated into higher education?

We are encouraging students to use them, but we have found in classes that what the AI tools return as answers or solutions can be wrong. This is particularly true in animal taxonomy, biology, geology, and volcanic studies. AI technologies are useful tools, but you have to present them with the right questions. Students also need to learn the correct way to gain knowledge that can be scientifically supported.

What are some of the key strategies you’ve put in place in your most recent mid-term plan?

In areas with declining populations, we need to gather all the resources that are dispersed in a wider area. At the beginning of our mid-term plan, we set five targets. The idea was to create a collective impact. This platform is joined by different players with different missions such as local municipalities, enterprises, and educational institutions. This has given our university more opportunities to raise funds for the platform. As a result of fundraising activities, the government allocated funds during the last fiscal year, which has allowed us to start a new professional education program for working individuals to learn about business management.

One of the five targets I mentioned is nurturing human resources. Using the platform we invited project proposals from faculties, and so far, 21 projects have been assigned a budget from funds.

Main campus

Your project with Uzbekistan involves bringing 24 researchers here to Japan. Can you tell us more about the success of the project and do you have plans to undertake similar projects with different regional partners?

This project was a significant step for us in expanding partnerships or engagements with overseas partners. This was not about academic exchange agreements but the agreement we have with Business Development Bank, which is a government subsidiary. We provide educational content for about 10,000 small business owners in an online, on-demand format. Major universities such as Stanford and UC Berkeley have already exported their educational content relating to entrepreneurship. I believe that we are the first among Japanese universities to export such content. As a starting point, this project was a huge success, and we are very proud of what has been achieved. 

Expanding this type of project is not our focus, but should an opportunity present itself we would like to export educational content to other countries, particularly countries that are seeking industrial development through manufacturing and the Lean Method.

Imagine that we come back on the very last day of your presidency and have this interview all over again. What goals or dreams do you hope to achieve by the time you are ready to pass the baton onto the next generation of Yamagata University executives?

I have 18 months left on my tenure as president, so during that time, I need to build an educational program that is more competitive and attractive to both Japanese and international students. If you were to come back in five years I imagine you would see a huge change to the university.

For more information, visit their website at: https://www.yamagata-u.ac.jp/en/