FEATURE: New Program to Support University Internationalization

The Program: "Strategic Fund for Establishing International Headquarters in Universities"

In FY 2005, Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) inaugurated a funding program to establish and strengthen "international strategy headquarters" within universities and other Japanese research institutions. The program is aimed at creating an internationally competitive research environment in these institutions-one that, amidst fierce global competition for knowledge assets, will attract outstanding researchers to them from both within Japan and abroad.

These headquarters are tailored to the institutional characteristics of each university. Their operation is cross-sectional, permeating all the university's departments and institutes. The headquarters devise international strategies, while promoting organic linkage, both systematic and cross-departmental, throughout the university. In this way, the program seeks to strengthen, through targeted funding, the international activities of universities and other Japanese research institutions.

Rather than being applied to international joint research, funding under this program provides logistic support for advancing the university's own distinctive international activities carried out by faculty and students. Concretely, the program supplies funding for the following purposes:

• For information collection, compilation and analysis needed to establish international strategies
• To strengthen international strategy headquarters staffing by hiring and training personnel
• To provide "one-stop" service for foreign researchers and students, both for enrollment processing and life-in-Japan counseling
• To build networks among visiting researchers who have returned to their countries and their Japanese colleagues

MEXT has chosen 20 universities to pilot this program. Each has set up a model international strategy headquarters, which will receive funding over a five year period. The activities of these headquarters are expected to continue after the funding has ended.

JSPS, in cooperation with the Japan International Science and Technology Exchange Center (JISTEC), functions as a bridge between MEXT and the participating universities. It performs comprehensive analyses of the pilot programs and conducts studies on the internationalization activities of universities both in and outside Japan, extracting examples of good practices. This research and analysis program is scheduled to run for a period of five years from FY 2005-FY 2009.

The program is implemented by the University International Strategy Council, chaired by Prof. Tsutomu Kimura, president, National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation. The Council provides recommendations on various aspects of university internationalization, including the enhancement of their research activities, educational curricula, and environment for hosting overseas researchers and students.

Program Sketch