Under
the initiative, the Ministry of Environment of Japan plans to support and proceed with the following projects: (1) development of model programs at colleges and graduate schools, (2) development of a consortium through the partnership of industry, government, and the public, and (3) development and strengthening of networks among the universities in Asia. Sustainability in higher education in Japan In Japan, there are numerous graduate programs RSL3 mouse in the sustainability field, such as environmental management, resource circulation and energy, social systems, and risk selleck communications.1 While emphasizing the importance of an inter-disciplinarity, most of the programs are established within the fields of engineering and environmental science. This observation contrasts with international initiatives
on sustainability, which put more focus on social development and quality of life. In fact, in Europe and North America, many sustainability programs are found in the field of social sciences, such as economics, political science, and business/management (Banas 2007). The IR3S attempts to establish graduate programs for sustainability science at the master’s level in the five participating universities.2 The uniqueness of the attempt by the IR3S is that these programs are the first comprehensive programs that integrate different academic disciplines and education networks in sustainability check details science in Japan. As the IR3S defines, sustainability science is “a new academic discipline that seeks to understand the interactions within and between global, social, and human systems, the complex mechanisms that lead to degradation of these systems, and concomitant risks to human well-being and security, and then to propose visions and methods for repairing these systems and linkages.3” This definition requires us to employ a trans-disciplinary approach in curricula and to focus on practical
training for sustainability issues. Also, given PIK3C2G that sustainability deals with such vast research areas, the IR3S is aware that building a network among the participating universities is not only essential to meet these requirements, but is also a means to maximize the capacity of the universities. The RISS program, Osaka University Osaka University was established in 1931 as the sixth imperial university, located in the western part of Japan. It is a large organization consisting of 11 schools with ten corresponding graduate schools and with more than 8,000 faculty and staff and 25,000 students. Osaka University has long been strong in the fields of engineering and natural science, devising a number of new scientific technologies related to the environmental and energy fields.