Osaka University

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Osaka University
大阪大学
Osaka University logo
Motto地域に生き世界に伸びる
Motto in English
Live Locally, Grow Globally
TypePublic (National)
EstablishedKaitokudo founded 1724; Osaka Imperial University established 1931
Budget147 billion yen (2018)[1]
PresidentShojiro Nishio
Academic staff
3,541[1]
Administrative staff
6,683[1]
Students25,784[1]
Undergraduates15,250[1]
Postgraduates8,054[1]
Other students
2,480 (international)[1]
Location
Suita/Toyonaka/Minoh
,
Osaka
,
Japan
CampusSuburban, 1.58 km²[1]
Authorized Student Groups59 sports-related, 70 culture-related[2]
Colors     Sky blue
MascotDr. Wani[3]
Websitewww.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/index.html

Osaka University (大阪大学, Ōsaka daigaku), or Handai (阪大, Handai), is a public research university located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Osaka University is one of Japan's National Seven Universities and is generally considered one of Japan's most prestigious institutions of higher learning. It is usually ranked among the top three public universities in Japan, along with the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. It is ranked third overall among Japanese universities and 67th worldwide in the 2019 QS World University Rankings.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has classified Osaka University as a leading university in the Top Global University Project. The ministry also selected Osaka University as a Designated National University Corporation in 2018.[4]

Osaka University was the sixth modern university in Japan at its founding in 1931. However, the history of the institution includes much older predecessors in Osaka such as the Kaitokudō founded in 1724 and the Tekijuku founded in 1838.

Numerous prominent scholars and scientists have attended or worked at Osaka University, such as Nobel Laureate in Physics Hideki Yukawa, manga artist Osamu Tezuka, Lasker Award winner Hidesaburō Hanafusa, author Ryōtarō Shiba, and discoverer of regulatory T cells Shimon Sakaguchi.

History[edit]

The academic traditions of the university reach back to the Kaitokudō (懐徳堂), an Edo-period school for local citizens founded in 1724, and the Tekijuku (適塾), a school of Rangaku for samurai founded by Ogata Kōan in 1838. The spirit of the university's humanities programs is believed to be intimately rooted in the history of the Kaitokudō, whereas that of the natural and applied sciences is based upon the traditions of the Tekijuku.[5]

Tekijuku founder Ogata Kōan

Osaka University traces its modern origins back the founding of Osaka Prefectural Medical School in downtown Osaka City in 1869. The school was later designated the Osaka Prefectural Medical College with university status by the University Ordinance (Imperial Ordinance No. 388) in 1919. The Medical College merged with the newly founded College of Science to form Osaka Imperial University in 1931. Osaka Imperial University was the sixth imperial university in Japan. Osaka Technical College was incorporated to form the School of Engineering two years later. The entire university was renamed Osaka University in 1947.

After merging with Naniwa High School and Osaka High School as a result of the government's education system reform in 1949, Osaka University started its postwar era with five faculties: Science, Medicine, Engineering, Letters, and Law. Since that time new faculties and research institutes have been established, including the first Japanese School of Engineering Science and the School of Human Sciences, which covers such cross-disciplinary research interests as broadly as psychology, sociology, and education. Built on the then-existing faculties, ten graduate schools were set up as part of the government's education system reform program in 1953. Two more graduate faculties were added in 1994.

In 1993, Osaka University Hospital was relocated from the Nakanoshima campus in downtown Osaka to the Suita campus, completing the implementation of the university's plan to integrate the scattered facilities into the Suita and Toyonaka campuses. In October 2007, a merger between Osaka University and the Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Minoh was completed. The merger made Osaka University one of two national universities in the country with a School of Foreign Studies, along with the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The merger also made Osaka University the largest national university in Japan.

Campuses[edit]

Toyonaka Campus Main Entrance

Suita, Toyonaka, and Minoh are the contemporary university's three campuses. Home to the university's headquarters, the Suita campus extends across Suita City and Ibaraki City in Osaka Prefecture. The Suita campus houses faculties of Human Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Engineering. It contains the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences and a portion of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. The campus is also home to the Osaka University Hospital and the Nationwide Joint Institute of Cybermedia Center and Research Center for Nuclear Physics.

The Toyonaka campus is home to faculties of Letters, Law, Economics, Science, and Engineering Science. It is also the academic base for Graduate Schools of International Public Policy, Language and Culture, a portion of Information Science, and the Center for the Practice of Legal and Political Expertise. All undergraduates attend classes on the Toyonaka campus during their first year of enrollment. Sports activities are primarily concentrated on the Toyonaka campus, with the exception of tennis, which is located in Suita.

Nakanoshima campus

The Minoh campus was incorporated following the merger with the Osaka University of Foreign Studies in October 2007. The Minoh campus is home to the School of Foreign Studies, the Research Institute for World Languages, and the Center for Japanese Language and Culture.

In addition to these three campuses, the former Nakanoshima campus, the university's earliest campus located in downtown Osaka, served as the hub for the faculty of medicine until the transfer to the Suita campus was completed in 1993.[6] In April 2004, the Nakanoshima campus became the university's Nakanoshima Center, serving as a venue for information exchange, adult education classes, and activities involving academic as well as non-academic communities.

Organization[edit]

Osaka University is organized into 11 faculties for undergraduate programs and 16 graduate schools.[7] The undergraduate programs are the School of Letters, School of Human Sciences, School of Foreign Studies, School of Law, School of Economics, School of Science, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry, School of Pharmaceutical Science, School of Engineering, and School of Engineering Science. The graduate programs are in the Graduate School of Letters, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Graduate School of Law and Politics, Graduate School of Economics, Graduate School of Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Graduate School of Dentistry, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Graduate School of Language and Culture, the Osaka School of International Public Policy, the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, and the Law School.

Osaka University also has 21 research institutes, 4 libraries, and 2 university hospitals.[8]

Some staff at Osaka University are represented by the General Union, a member of the National Union of General Workers, which is itself a member of the National Trade Union Council.[9]

Osaka University maintains four overseas Centers for Education and Research, in San Francisco, Groningen, Bangkok, and Shanghai.

English-medium programs[edit]

Osaka University's School of Human Sciences on the Suita Campus hosts an all-English four-year undergraduate degree program.[10] The program started in 2011 as a result of the national government's G30 (Global 30) Project. Although the government ended the G30 Project in 2014[11] and replaced it with the Top Global University Project, the Human Sciences International Undergraduate Program at Osaka University continues.

Osaka University's Graduate School of Letters hosts an English-language program in Global Japanese Studies for graduate students, one of the Graduate Programs for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies.[12]

Academic alliances[edit]

Osaka University has completed academic exchange agreements with a large number of universities (92 as of 2011) throughout the world and also exchange agreements between schools at Osaka University and schools and institutes in other countries (366 as of 2011). These agreements facilitate the visits of international students studying at Osaka University and the travel of Osaka University students studying at overseas universities, schools, and institutes. In many cases students are able to participate in these exchange agreements without paying additional tuition.[13]

Osaka University's academic alliances include Cornell University (1989), Harvard University (2008), Stanford University (2008), and the California Institute of Technology (2008) in the United States, McGill University (1996) and the University of Toronto (1999) in Canada, Seoul National University (2000) and Yonsei University (1998) in South Korea, Peking University (2001) and Tsinghua University (2004) in China, the National University of Singapore (2008), and Australian National University (1995). In Europe, alliances include the University of Bologna (2006), University of Geneva (2007), and the University of Cologne (1982). Allied institutions in the United Kingdom include the University of Oxford (1997) and Imperial College London (2006).

Academic rankings[edit]

QS World University Rankings (World rank followed by Japanese rank)
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
The University of Tokyo 17 (1) 22 (1) 22 (1) 24 (1) 25 (1) 30 (1) 32 (1)
Kyoto University 25 (2) 25 (2) 25 (2) 25 (2) 32 (2) 35 (2) 35 (2)
Osaka University 46 (3) 44 (3) 43 (3) 49 (3) 45 (3) 50 (3) 55 (3)
Tokyo Institute of Technology 90 (4) 61 (4) 55 (4) 60 (4) 57 (4) 65 (4) 66 (4)
Tohoku University 102 (5) 112 (5) 97 (6) 102 (6) 70 (5) 75 (5) 75 (5)
Nagoya University 112 (6) 120 (6) 92 (5) 91 (5) 80 (6) 86 (6) 99 (6)
Keio University 161 (9) 214 142 (7) 206 188 200 193 (9)
Waseda University 180 (10) 180 (9) 148 (8) 182(10) 185 (10) 198 (10) 220

Osaka University is considered one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, as seen in various foreign and domestic rankings. Internationally, Osaka University was ranked 67th among the world's best universities and the third best Japanese university in 2019 according to the QS World University Rankings produced by Quacquarelli Symonds.[14] Osaka University is third in Japan and 53rd worldwide in the 2019 Center for World University Rankings.[15] It is also ranked third in Japan in the 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[16]

Domestically, the university was ranked third in 2009 and fourth in 2008 and 2010 in the ranking "Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai, which measures alumni productivity.[17] Japanese prep school Kawaijuku has also ranked Osaka University as the third best university in Japan.[18]

Osaka University is one of the most productive research institutions in Japan. According to Thomson Reuters, Osaka University among the three top research universities in Japan.[19] Its research excellence is especially distinctive in such fields as immunology (first in Japan and fourth in the world), material science (fourth in Japan, fifteenth in the world), and chemistry (fifth in Japan, fourteenth in the world).[20] Weekly Diamond also reported that Osaka University has the seventh highest research funding per researcher in the Japanese COE Program.[21] Osaka University also has a high research reputation in Economics. Repec ranked Osaka's economics department second in Japan in 2011.[22] Osaka University graduates has served as presidents of the Japanese Economic Association five times in its history.[23]

Osaka University had the fourth most patents accepted (171) among Japanese universities during 2009.[24]

Osaka University Law School is considered one of top law schools in Japan, as it was ranked seventh in terms of the number of successful candidates for the Japanese Bar Examination in 2010.[25]

According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Osaka University have the seventh highest employment rate among the 400 major companies in Japan.[26]

Popularity and selectivity[edit]

Osaka University is one of the most selective universities in Japan. Its entrance difficulty is usually considered one of the highest in Japan.[27][28]

Nikkei BP's "Brand rankings of Japanese universities" ranks Osaka University's brand the second strongest in the Kansai region after Kyoto University.[29]

Notable people[edit]

Osamu Tezuka

Media[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Osaka University: Outline of the University". Retrieved 2018-12-18.
  2. ^ Introduction to Official Student Groups. Accessed on 2018-12-18.
  3. ^ [1]. Accessed on 2018-12-18.
  4. ^ "Designated National University Corporation Osaka University". Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  5. ^ "History of the University". Osaka University. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
  6. ^ History of Osaka University — Osaka University. Osaka-u.ac.jp. Retrieved on 2011-06-26.
  7. ^ Undergraduate and Graduate schools & facilities — Osaka University. Osaka-u.ac.jp. Retrieved on 2011-06-26.
  8. ^ History of Osaka University — Osaka University. Osaka-u.ac.jp (2007-10-01). Retrieved on 2014-06-17.
  9. ^ General Union website Osaka U: Massive cuts to come for part-timers Retrieved on June 6, 2012
  10. ^ "Human Science International Undergraduate Degree Program OSAKA UNIVERSITY". Human Science International Undergraduate Degree Program OSAKA UNIVERSITY. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  11. ^ "DEGREE PROGRAMS in English at Kyushu University | Our Globalization Project : MEXT's "Global 30" Project". www.isc.kyushu-u.ac.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  12. ^ "高度副プログラム「グローバル・ジャパン・スタディーズ」(Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies Program in Global Japanese Studies)" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2018-11-30.
  13. ^ University Exchange Agreements — Osaka University Archived 2010-01-08 at the Wayback Machine. Osaka-u.ac.jp (2010-11-01). Retrieved on 2011-06-26.
  14. ^ "Osaka University". QS Top Universities. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
  15. ^ "Japan - CWUR World University Rankings 2018-2019". Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  16. ^ "World University Rankings 2019". Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  17. ^ "Truly Strong Universities" (in Japanese). Toyo Keizai. 2010. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  18. ^ "Kawai 30 Top Japanese Universities". Kawaijuku. 2001. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  19. ^ "Thomson Reuters 20 Top research institutions in Japan". Thomson Reuters. 2011. Retrieved April 29, 2011. This ranking includes 5 non-educational institutions.
  20. ^ "Thomson Reuters 20 Top research institutions in Japan" (PDF). Thomson Reuters. This ranking includes non-educational institutions.
  21. ^ "週刊ダイヤモンド" ダイヤモンド社 2010/2/27 http://web.sapmed.ac.jp/kikaku/infomation/0227daiyamondokiji.pdf
  22. ^ Within Country and State Rankings at IDEAS: Japan. Ideas.repec.org. Retrieved on 2011-06-26.
  23. ^ Japanese Economic Association – JEA Global Site. Jeaweb.org. Retrieved on 2011-06-26.
  24. ^ (in Japanese)2009年国内大学別特許公開件数, Japanese patent office, accessed May 3rd 2011
  25. ^ 2010年(平成22年)新司法試験法科大学院別合格率ランキング -法科大学院seek. Laws.shikakuseek.com. Retrieved on 2011-06-26.
  26. ^ "Employment rate in 400 major companies rankings" (in Japanese). Weekly Economist. 2011. Retrieved Apr 29, 2011.
  27. ^ e.g. Yoyogi seminar published Hensachi (the indication showing the entrance difficulties by prep schools) rankings "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-04-22. Retrieved 2016-07-29.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
  28. ^ Japanese journalist Kiyoshi Shimano ranks its entrance difficulty as SA (most selective out of 11 grades) in Japan. 危ない大学・消える大学 2012年版 (in Japanese). YELL books. 2011.
  29. ^ NBPC ニュースリリース「大学ブランド・イメージ調査 2010(首都圏編)」（2009年10月実施）より Archived 2011-06-24 at the Wayback Machine. Consult.nikkeibp.co.jp. Retrieved on 2011-06-26.

External links[edit]

Coordinates: 34°49′09″N 135°31′36″E / 34.81917°N 135.52667°E / 34.81917; 135.52667

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