Business Owner Action Plan

Business Owner Action Plan (for Next-Generation Development Assistance and Women's Activity Promotion)

Based on the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children and the Act on the Promotion of Women's Participation and Advancement in the Workplace, Osaka University has formulated its “Business Owner Action Plan" for the five years beginning 2020.

Osaka University Business Owner Action Plan (for Next-Generation Development Assistance and Women's Activity Promotion)

In order to develop a safe, loving, and secure environment for children and improve its infrastructure to enable working women to fulfill their individuality and potential, Osaka University has formulated its Business Owner Action Plan based on the above-mentioned laws.

Under this plan, the university will strive to maintain an environment in which workers can balance work and child-rearing and women can be active in the post-COVID-19 era while reconciling to coexistence with the virus.

Plan Period

April 1, 2020~March 31, 2025 (5 years)

OU needs to:

(1) Further increase the proportion of women in the decision-making process

(2) Further increase the proportion of female researchers

(3) Increase the number of male workers to take childcare leave

Goals, activity to achieve these goals, and their respective timeframe

Goal 1: Taking measures to increase female representation in top management under the president’s leadership and bringing the proportion of women in the decision-making process (via the appointment of women to Administrative Council members and Executive Assistants to the President) to 30% by the end of the 2024-25 academic year.

[Summary of activity]

Measures to be taken

  • Period: April 2020~
  • Holding workshops and seminars for female faculty members in senior management-level positions to fuel their motivation for promotion
  • Discussing measures to hire female professors and associate professors to teaching positions as candidates for managerial positions
  • Period: April 2021~
  • Discussing a quota system to recruit women into university management in order to promote appointment of female faculty members to managerial positions in teaching profession

Goal 2: Increasing the proportion of female researchers to 30% in the 2031-32 academic year

[Summary of activity]

Measures to be taken

  • Period: April 2020~
  • Setting goals for female researcher proportions in each department and reflect those numbers in evaluations of those departments
  • Period: April 2020~
  • Engaging in activities to bring out the organization’s strength of female graduate students, particularly that of those in natural sciences, in order to broaden the next-generation researcher base.
  • Period: April 2022~
  • Examining the proportion of female faculty members and discussing relevant recruiting methods

Goal 3: Promoting labor reform and changing workers’ awareness in order to advance this reform, creating an inclusive work environment in which employees can exert their individuality and ability regardless of gender, and raising the share of eligible men taking childcare leave* to 70% by the 2024-25 academic year.

*This percentage represents the share of male faculty members who take childcare leave or special leave for their spouse's childbirth and/or child-rearing.

[Summary of activity]

Measures to be taken

  • Period: April 2020~
  • Creating/distributing leaflets promoting the acquisition of childcare leave by male workers
  • Increasing awareness of acquisition of childcare leave by men through the Iku-Boss-Ally Declaration by OU officials

Note: Iku-Boss refers to managers who actively work to support their workers’ childcare needs.

  • Period: April 2021~
  • Holding workshops on unconscious gender bias, which has led to assigned gender roles
  • Promoting labor reform by investigating flexible work styles, permitting shortened working hours and working from home
  • Period: April 2022~
  • Evaluating departments that have furthered measures to promote workers’ acquisition of childcare leave

*Click here for the PDF version of the above Action Plan. (file in Japanese)

As part of goal 3 of the Business Owner Action Plan, the university has distributed the following leaflets to OU community members to promote the acquisition of childcare leave by men.

*Click here for the PDF versions of these leaflets. (files in Japanese)



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