Masakazu Hara Dean,
Graduate School of Science and Technology

Reorganizing the former two graduate schools in Shizuoka University, the Graduate School of Science and Technology started in April 2006. It is a unique doctor course graduate school, where faculties in wide varieties of the fields including engineering, informatics, science, and agriculture, and some in the education and social science areas participate in interdisciplinary researches and education. We accept students widely from various counties in the world including working students. Since establishment, students more than the admission capacity of 45 have entered the school each year with ambition and strong willingness for challenge, and 589 students have been awarded a doctoral degree.

The educational objective is to give students deep knowledge dedicated to specialized fields and broad-based education that meets the needs of the times. We provide the curriculum which consists of systematically organized special subjects and those related to daily progress in surrounding fields and social needs as well as the detailed guidance system prepared in each department in order to nurture individuals who possess creativity, self-problem-solving ability and communication skills. In addition, to nurture internationally active engineers and researchers holding doctoral degrees, we extensively promote cooperative education and exchange programs of students with collaborating universities and research institutes on the basis of exchange agreements. The leading projects presently conducted are: International Priority Graduate Programs for Students Granted by Japanese Government Scholarship, Inter-Academia that is an international conference with 14 collaborating Central-Eastern European universities, the Double Degree Program in the doctor’s course, which we first introduced in Japan, and Environmental Leaders Program (special doctoral program).

In addition to the basic and applied research in engineering, informatics, science, and agriculture, our research aims at creating cross-cutting and advanced interdisciplinary fields beyond the conventional framework and creating innovation based on the industries in the local area; we pursue original and advanced researches in optics, electronics, and informatics mainly on Hamamatsu campus and those in life and environmental sciences manly on Shizuoka campus. Especially in the fields of “optoelectronic and imaging science,” “environment and energy system,” and “green-bio-science,” which Shizuoka University strategically promotes, we educate the students under strong cooperation with Research Institute of Electronics and Research Institute of Green Science and Technology in our university. Collaboration with Cooperative major in medical photonics established between our university and Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in 2018 has also been progressed.

Taking over the achievement accumulated until today, we will continue to train engineers and researchers to meet the expectation of international and local societies while further improving educational programs and strengthening the support for students. We will also transmit more understandable and appealing information toward industry, overseas countries and society.

April, 2021