Greetings from the Leader

I am pleased to announce that we have been awarded a grant for our Global COE Program, Science of Human Development for Restructuring the “Gap-Widening Society”:, that we, the Human Development and Social Science Division of the Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, applied for.

The purpose of the Global COE Program is to selectively support the establishment of education and research centers of international excellence. These centers will train creative researchers, who can lead the world in cutting-edge research environments generated through the enhanced education and research functions of graduate schools, and thus, strengthening the international leadership of Japanese universities. Sixty-three programs out of 281 applications have been selected in fiscal 2007 in the following five categories: Life Science; Chemistry and Materials Science; Information Sciences, Electrical and Electronics Engineering; Humanities, and Interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, new disciplines. Our Program, Science of Human Development for Restructuring the “Gap-Widening Society”, was selected under the Humanities category.

Following our 21st Century COE Program, the Human Development and Social Science Division will be offering a variety of educational programs and research projects to train female researchers who are “sensitive to social injustice”, and to establish an education and research center of international caliber. The Global COE Program aims to establish a center capable of attracting excellent researchers from around the globe. Therefore, our center will carry out advanced research projects. However, first and foremost, the emphasis of the Program will be to train young researchers. Hence, our educational programs will employ research assistants, publicly solicit research projects for gradate students and young researchers, dispatch researchers to academic conferences and research projects abroad, assist researchers in writing papers and presenting in English, hold variety of seminars and symposiums, and collaborate with field research projects. I am confident that some of our programs will amaze young graduate students and researchers.

Moreover, we are in the process of gradually improving this website because it is a vital link with the public. So please visit it often to watch our latest developments.

Professor MIMIZUKA Hiroaki
Leader, G-COE Program,
Science of Human Development for Restructuring the “Gap-Widening Society”