Osaka University aims to improve its graduate schools both qualitatively and quantitatively, to enhance and humanize both education and research, thereby nurturing creative human beings, graduates who can answer the needs of our society and age.

1. Improvements of Education at Existing Graduate Schools:

• Created new fields of study and reorganized and combined existing fields.
  
• Doubled or nearly so the number of graduate students and, in doing so, improved the system for graduate education and research.
  • Between 1995 and 2000 the ten Graduate Schools of Research (Letters, Human Science, Law, Economics, Science, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Engineering and Engineering Science) underwent reorganization.
• Reorganization of the Graduate School of Engineering Science (2003)
  • The reorganization of this graduate school was conducted in order to make possible a wide spectrum of prominent interdisciplinary research based on fundamental science, to give birth to fields that would involve the entire university, and, moreover, to cultivate talented researchers who could play internationally active roles through their specialization as well as through their interdisciplinary versatility.

2. New Genres of Graduate Schools inaugurated:

• The Graduate School of Language and Culture, established in 1989
  • This faculty was established for the purpose of cultivating persons capable of promoting healthy development of a globalized information society by researching a wide range of issues such as how languages and cultures were formed in various regions, how people communicate in organizations or between races and nations and by examining problems caused by interaction between different languages and cultures. This was the very first faculty of its kind in Japan.
  • Without placing restrictions on one’s previous department of study or specialty, the Graduate School of Language and Culture accepts students from various fields, including the humanities, sociology, and the natural sciences for the purpose of establishing “Language and Culture” as a discipline and making possible educational research with an interdisciplinary and international point of view based on the students’ specialties.
• The Osaka School of International Public Policy, established in 1994
  • In this research institute, the fields of Law and Economics are integrated in order to cultivate professional specialists and researchers who can contribute to solving problems which directly face Japan as well as international society by combining academic and practical knowledge regarding law and economics.
  • Osaka University has created an interdisciplinary curriculum considered optimal for the creation of “lawyers strong in economics and economists strong in law.” Furthermore, the university has begun daytime and evening classes.
• The Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, established in 2002
  • Osaka University has integrated the research and curriculum organization relative to information and network technology that had formerly been divided among the Graduate School of Engineering, the Graduate School of Engineering Science, and the Graduate School of Science. The Graduate School of Information Science and Technology was established for the purpose of building the foundation for a strong, forward-looking research faculty by bringing together the knowledge of different fields in order to realize a highly developed information society.
  • In order to strengthen ties with the industrial world, courses have already been given in cooperation with companies and an IT Cooperation Forum is being planned.
• The Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, established in 2002.
  • Anticipating the leading role of Bioscience within the Life Sciences in the 21st century, and by simultaneously establishing a frontier research field, Osaka University nurtures graduates highly capable of responding to society’s many needs.
  • Bioscience concerns itself with the systems of the living body while bringing together various research fields such as medicine and engineering. Based on this interdisciplinary character, Osaka University will nurture highly capable graduates, possessing a broad vision in a variety of specialties.
  • An integrated five-year Doctor Course has been set up, directed toward the nurturing of specialists and the actualization of a flexible education.
• The Graduate School of Law, established in 2004 (Newly developed under a framework designed to advance the study of jurisprudence)
  • The Graduate School of Law was established for the purpose of producing graduates who are able to meet the broad needs of society and its citizens and contribute to society, and who possess not only preeminent knowledge and ability (regarding law) but also empathy and a strict sense of occupational ethics.
  • Courses, far from being one-way lectures, are based on reciprocal communication and interaction. Through the use of process education based on classes with a decidedly low student-to-teacher ratio of approximately 30 students per class, the Graduate School of Law enhances the ability of its students to recognize and solve problems and to provide logical explanations, while nurturing the flexible and creative thinking that will prove necessary for their occupations.

3. New Ventures in Graduate Student Education

• The Establishment of a System of Affiliated Graduate Schools
• Osaka University has introduced a system of affiliated graduate schools through the realization of research exchange between the university and other outstanding research institutions in the vicinity in order to increase the diversity and richness of the various research fields, and to encourage education and research to reach a higher level.
  • Graduate School of Law and Politics (Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co., Ltd. and one other institute)
  • Graduate School of Economics (Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc.)
  • Graduate School of Science (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology [AIST] and 4 other institutes)
  • Graduate School of Medicine (National Cardiovascular Center and 4 other institutes)　
  • Graduate School of Dentistry (Osaka Medical Center and Research Institute for Maternal and Child Health)
  • Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (National Cardiovascular Center and 1 other institute)
  • Graduate School of Information Science and Technology (Sharp Corporation and 2 other institutes)
• Implementation of a System of Clinical Instruction
• Osaka University is striving towards the perfection of a system of guided clinical medical education aiming at cultivating medical doctors rich in human qualities, through coordination with local medical institutions boasting abundant experience and achievements.
  • Graduate School of Medicine (with the National Hospital Organization, Osaka National Hospital and other hospitals)
  • Graduate School of Dentistry (Especially with experienced practicing dentists)
  • Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (with the Suita Municipal Hospital and other hospitals)

4. The Promotion of Refresher Courses

In response to the needs of our current society and age, Osaka University is promoting late afternoon and evening refresher courses for the convenience of working people.