Kyoto University Establishes Kyoto Sustainability Initiative

In April 2006, Kyoto University established the Kyoto Sustainability Initiative (KSI), which works on the theme of concepts and development of global sustainability in cooperation with related departments and research institutes within the university. The research group is expected to play a central role in the Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S), which is coordinated by the University of Tokyo.

University departments participating in the KSI include the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, the Institute of Advanced Energy, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the Institute of Chemical Research, the Institute of Economic Research, the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, the Institute of Research in Humanities, and the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere. The university has attempted to create an interdisciplinary and flexible research and educational system that extents beyond the existing framework of university departments and boundaries of humanities and sciences. The KSI will conduct educational research under the theme of cross-cutting studies, such as creating the best-possible recycling society, dealing with climate change, ensuring of intergenerational and intra-generational equity, and environmental governance, toward the achievement of recycling-based societies in Asia through exchanges with participating departments and institutes overseas.

The IR3S is one of the leading networks of sustainability science in the world. Participating research institutes are based in five Japanese universities (Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Hokkaido University, and Ibaraki University) and work in alliance with Toyo University, Tohoku University, Chiba University, and National Institute of Environmental Studies, each with its own specific research topics. The IR3S aims to establish and develop sustainability science as an academic field, through a flexible institutional network, over a period of four years starting in 2006.

In fiscal 2007, Kyoto University will launch a KSI course as part of the master's program of the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, and it will operate through remote lectures transfer credits with partner universities. The university plans to establish a "Kyoto Model" through reform of socioeconomic systems and technology strategies, and to promote this new model in the world.

http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index.htm
http://www.ir3s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/top.html

Posted: 2006/06/14 08:34:09 AM
Japanese version