OVERVIEW
The Institute for Educational Initiatives promotes education at NAIST by implementing basic education policies, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship education, providing thorough career education and collaborating with academic institutions and companies in Japan and overseas, in accordance with the NAIST's core principles and policies.
Before the establishment of the Institute for Educational Initiatives in 2015, the Education Strategy Project Team, established at NAIST in 2012, proposed a number of education issues and possible ways to solve them.
In response to this, in 2013 NAIST's policies were re-written to clearly state that “the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) would be newly established and that it would work in collaboration with the Institute for Research Initiatives, which supports research activities, to strategically promote the NAIST's research and education under the direction of the President. IEI is responsible for the planning, promotion and evaluation of Education Programs. In order to achieve world-class graduate education in interdisciplinary fields, we designed our curriculum making use of the fact that NAIST doesn't maintain any undergraduate programming. The goal of this is to achieve an environment that will allow faculty members to truly dedicate themselves to research and education, while also being able to respond to new developments in science and technology and to new social demands in the future.
In April 2015, along NAIST's selection for the Top Global University Project, IEI was established under the leadership of the Executive Director in charge of education. NAIST aims to foster students with a “spirit of challenge, well-roundedness, interdisciplinary understanding, and global perspectives” who will be able to solve global and future problems and lead new developments in advanced science and technology.
In 2018, as NAIST merged its three graduate schools to create a single graduate school structure, IEI's role was re-examined. IEI leads the globalization of education in areas such as international collaboration in education and double degree programs, support for faculty development activities, and career planning support. It was also decided that IEI would be responsible for English education for students as part of the globalization of NAIST's curriculum and with this, the faculty members leading NAIST's English education were assigned from the graduate school to IEI. On the other hand, the coordination of education between the three former graduate schools was transferred to the new Graduate School of Science and Technology.
OUR ORGANIZATION
IEI consists of four divisions: the Division for Educational Development, the Division for Innovation Education, the Division for Career Development, and the Division for Global Education.
- The Division for Educational Development is
- responsible for formulating NAIST's education policies and assessing education from various points of view, both from inside and outside the university. In addition, we are working on improving English education for globalization, Japanese education for international students, and the general education needed to develop highly trained students who can contribute to society from various perspectives.
- The Division for Innovation Education is
- engaged in educational activities with a focus on cultivating technological human resources, fostering entrepreneurs, and innovation education.
- The Division for Career Development
- offers various career support activities mainly for students and postdoctoral fellows who wish to work in non-academic fields, including career planning interviews considering individual goals, etc., transferable skills training, business-student matching events, and talks by alumni and industry leaders.
INTRODUCTION OF
OUR DIVISIONS
1
Division for
Educational Development
The Division for Educational Development (DED) is responsible for planning and supporting curriculum development, organizing student academic guidance, globalization of education, providing information about and holding seminars on faculty development, and managing education support systems.
2
Division for
Innovation Education
The Division for Innovation Education (DIVE) plans and manages educational programs and faculty development projects focusing on technical human resource development, entrepreneurship development, and innovation education.
We are promoting the establishment of an ecosystem of start-ups centered around NAIST to create an active cycle of “knowledge, human resources and funding” among companies, universities, venture capitalists and venture companies, by linking them to executive businesspersons from the pre-start-up phase.
3
Division for
Career Development
The Division for Career Development (DCD) provides various career support activities for students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in working in non-academic fields including career planning interviews considering individual goals, etc., transferable skills training, business-student matching events, and talks by alumni and industry leaders.
Along with domestic jobs for Japanese students, we also pursue career development initiatives globally, like support for internships abroad for Japanese students and job-hunting support for domestic employment for international students.