ABSTRACT

Introduction It was in the early 1960s, when the immediate postwar confusion had died away, the economy was booming and the notion of a middle class that embraced virtually the entire Japanese nation was beginning to take hold, that Japan began to think seriously about the pattern of higher education. Two reports by the Central Council for Education, one issued in 1963 and one in 1971, foreshadow, with their emphasis on the importance of graduate education and on the integrated nature of higher education, from undergraduate to doctoral level, the recommendations and the kind of institutions that have emerged over the last decade or so. And the example of the University of Tsukuba, established in 1973, offers another glimpse into the future. As the university president, Professor Iwasaki, says in his introductory message on the university’s website, ‘Since its founding, the University of Tsukuba has been a forerunner among Japanese universities in putting new ideas into practice.’1 These ‘new ideas’ included the grouping of colleges into clusters, an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies, and active efforts to establish links with science and technology-related organizations outside the university as well as with the local community.