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Dean's Message

Welcome to Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society

Masao Ohno

Masao Ohno
Dean, Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society

The Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society was established in 2014 and celebrates its tenth year in 2023. Its predecessor Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies was established in 1994 and celebrates its 30th year.

The Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society has "integrative interdisciplinarity from a global social perspective" as its educational philosophy. In other words, our educational goal is not to confine ourselves to a single specialized field, but to nurture individuals who investigate various research issues based on an integrated interdisciplinary approach that transcends the boundaries between the humanities and sciences. To achieve this goal, the master's program has six courses, from which students select their main and sub courses. The figure shows the six courses on the right, and in the center are examples of keywords for the research themes that are being pursued by the Graduate School. From the top, there are themes that focus on the planet Earth, themes related to the organisms that live on the Earth. Focusing on humans among those organisms, there are themes related to various aspects of human society and culture. This diagram suggests that these research themes are loosely connected. The left side of the figure shows the research subjects of courses, which range from the planet Earth, world, countries, cities, communities, and families, arranged at various levels. This figure is a renewed illustration based on the one used when the school was established. I think this is a good representation of the sense of unity of the School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society, which is a group of faculty and students with diverse specialties.

Spectrum

In addition to this, as a further mechanism to achieve the goal in the master's program, we have provided a curriculum that emphasizes coursework, and have offered a variety of courses that build up from the basics to application, enabling students to acquire the skills and abilities to approach various issues in an interdisciplinary manner. From the beginning in FY2020, our School's signature course "Integrated Science for Earth and Society" has been reconfigured as a graduate school version of the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) course. Students with different areas of expertise form groups and work together to tackle issues, which has been well received as a practical course of study of integrated interdisciplinary approaches.

Of course, writing of master's or doctoral dissertations is also important at our Graduate School, which indicates a point of achievement in learning and research. But here, too, the research projects set by individual students have a breadth, uniqueness, and cross-disciplinary theme not found in other discipline-focused graduate schools. The faculty members of the Graduate School also specialize in diverse academic fields and provide interdisciplinary research guidance.

The Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society has developed two major educational and research projects at the same time of its establishment. The two programs were the "Advanced Global Training Project for Integrated Academic" and the "Integrated Interdisciplinary Program for Leading Future Asia Innovation." Although both projects have been closed, the numerous international symposiums, workshops, and field research training in Japan and overseas in the projects were a great help in nurturing our students to become talented individuals.

Using the success of these projects as a foothold, the "Graduate Program of Interdisciplinary Policy Analysis and Design" was launched in 2021. This is a minor program across the humanities and sciences established in cooperation with several academic departments of Kyushu University, with the Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society serving as the core of the program. By choosing this program as a minor, students of the Graduate School will be able to expand their world of research activities in a more interdisciplinary and practical way.

As described above, Kyushu University's Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society is developing education to nurture researchers and highly-skilled professionals who will be active in society, with breadth and uniqueness not found in other discipline-first graduate schools. We hope that you will be interested in seeing these activities on this website. We would greatly appreciate your understanding and support.