Dean’s Message

The Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR) offers a friendly and exciting academic environment in which the views, values, ideas and experiences of students from more than forty countries are not only shared, but also analyzed and reexamined thoroughly through continuous interaction among students and faculty members.

As the dean of the GSIR, I am proud to affirm that the success of our program is owed in large part to the dedication of each faculty member. Our faculty is unique in that almost all of members have been awarded her/his PhD degree by reputable universities abroad, which is unseen anywhere else in Japan. This constitutes the basis for all faculty members being dedicated researchers as well as teachers in a number of ways. In addition to the fact that all courses are taught in English, the faculty members’ study experience abroad contributes to international understanding as well as understanding what it’s like to be a student in a foreign country. But most importantly, all members of the GSIR are competent academics, since they are actively involved in research, witnessed by publications in highly ranked academic journals.

Fuelled by the earnest desire of the students and faculty members to contribute to equalizing the opportunities of people in all countries of the world, it is the mission of the GSIR to train our students to strengthen their capacity to observe, analyze, and participate in socio-economic development. Our students also play a substantial role in making our program successful through hard work and persistence in finding solutions to challenging issues. What we offer our students is a highly educational program that is designed to guide them to ask the right questions and to master the use of scientific tools provided by social science for objective, critical and logical analyses of socio-economic observations. With a solid curriculum accompanied by rigorous training that is unique to the GSIR, the dedicated faculty members all look forward to welcoming new students.