Outline
｜ JAPANESE ｜
Introduction to the project
University research is driven by the freely expressed inspiration, intellectual curiosity, and enthusiasm of individual researchers in their quest for new discoveries. The promotion of research therefore entails the development in diverse academic fields of human resources with extraordinary creativity, originality, and commitment. As globalization continues to advance, Kyoto University seeks to foster creative researchers with a broad perspective and flexible mindset-qualities that are essential for pioneering research at the vanguard of academic frontiers. With that purpose in mind, the university launched the Hakubi Project to Foster and Support Young Researchers and established the Hakubi Center in 2009. The center coordinates the Hakubi Project in collaboration with the university’s faculties, graduate schools, research institutes, and research centers.
Through the original program, the Hakubi Center provided support to 110 researchers in the six-year period from 2009-2014, before the program was revised in 2015 to provide two types of appointment: the Global Type and the Tenure-track Type. The Tenure-track Type was introduced under the Japanese government’s Leading Initiative for Excellent Young Researchers (LEADER) project, and the Global Type is a continuation of the original program’s recruitment system, whereby ten researchers per year are selected by the university from applicants around the world to serve as associate or assistant professors. The program is open to researchers who hold a doctoral degree (or have equivalent ability) in any field of basic or applied research-from the humanities to the social and natural sciences.
