HIROSAKI UNIVERSITY

Graduate School of Regional Studies


Graduate School of
Regional Studies

Overview

The Regional Social Research Program was started in April 2002, and has become a center for educating individuals capable of taking action and interacting directly with regional communities. Its distinctive mission is to first make the university a locus of innovation and knowledge, and then to extend its reach beyond the city of Hirosaki in a multilateral fashion.

Our program receives more applications than we can accept each year from prospective students not only in the Tohoku region, but from every corner of Japan as well as overseas, and we have already granted over fifty PhDs. We feel great pride and responsibility in our strong track record of working closely with our surrounding regional communities. We continue to strive to improve the program, focusing on strengthening the spirit of cooperation between the faculty, students, and the region.

Graduate School of Regional Studies

Courses

Regional Industry

In this course, students study the field of regional industry, which forms a self-reliant and persistent foundation for the local community.
Students engage in a comprehensive research program which combines comparative and historical perspectives to discern the best course of action or form of cooperation with society, based on issues facing various regions’ environments and industries.
Students’ research is intended to cultivate new and unique industries by exploring the potential to increase the value of locally-identified products and to industrialize aspects of local culture.
Finally, students must always think about the pressing concern of promoting entrepreneurial ventures based on developing products specific to their locality. In doing so, their research will consider how to build an industrial system suited to the present state of a region, and seek to develop industrial resources produced by the region itself.

Regional Culture

Students grapple with fundamental issues like the reciprocal relationship between local everyday life and the harsh, domineering climate, and the dynamic opposition between deeply-rooted tradition and the modernization of society, culture, and language. With this understanding, they design research projects geared toward cultivating a twenty-first century regional community well-integrated with various aspects of its environment.
Students also engage in study of aspects of regional culture beginning with the Jōmon Period, which forms the bedrock of present-day Tohoku regional culture.

Regional Political Studies

Students combine the industrial and cultural studies explained above to create a concrete and detailed foundation upon which to engage in a research project concerning issues like the state of the broad political region of northern Tohoku and southern Hokkaido, or the creation of policies related to regional environment.
Students may also study policy issues concerning lifelong learning and the natural environment; policies which are deeply related to individuals’ everyday lives.
Another option is the pragmatic study of insurance and medical policy, both of which have become ever more critical with the phenomenon of rapidly-aging society in rural Japan.

Number of students (As of May 1, 2024)


TOTAL
31
M 21 / F 10

Access and Contact

Address 1 Bunkyo-cho, Hirosaki-shi, Aomori 036-8560
E-mail jm3940@hirosaki-u.ac.jp