, mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff = 3,978 (Total Staff) , students = 22,615 , president = Nagahiro Minato , city = Kyoto , state = Kyoto , country =

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, coor = , undergrad = 13,038 , postgrad = 9,308 , campus = Urban,
, , colors = Dark blue , nickname = Kyodai , mascot = None , free_label = Athletics , free = 48 varsity teams , affiliations =

Kansai Big Six is a collegiate baseball league located in central Kansai region of Japan, stretching from Hyōgo in the west to Kyoto in the east. The league joined the All Japan University Baseball Federation in 1951. Members National Championships Cham ...

, ASAIHL , logo = , website
www.kyoto-u.ac.jp
, or , is a public research university located in Kyoto,

. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. KyotoU is consistently ranked amongst the top two in Japan, the top ten in Asia, and the world's top fifty institutions of higher education. Founded upon the principles of its motto, “freedom of academic culture”, KyotoU is currently composed of three campuses with ten Faculties, eighteen Graduate Schools, thirteen Research Institutes, and twenty-two Research and Educational Centers. The Kyoto University Library, boasting over 7 million volumes, is Japan's second-largest academic library. Furthermore, KyotoU was one of the first three Designated National Universities and is categorized by the

Japanese government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, c ...

as a Top Type university in the Top Global University Project. As of March 2019, the university's total net assets were valued at 316 billion JPY. Advocating for international collaboration in education and research, KyotoU has partnerships with various academic institutions outside Japan. Kyoto University has generated 5 prime ministers of Japan and 1 president of Taiwan to date, and is famed for producing world-class researchers. As of October 2019, 19 Nobel Prize laureates, 2 Fields medalists, and 1 Gauss Prize winner have been affiliated with Kyoto University, giving it the most Nobel laureates of all universities in Asia. Apart from distinguished politicians and scholars, the university also counts in its alumni esteemed medical and legal professionals, writers, artists, and business leaders. KyotoU was ranked twelfth globally in Time's Higher Education's Alma Mater (Global Executives) Index in 2017, indicating the influence of its alumni on the business world. In addition, the university is the birthplace of the Kyoto School of philosophy, known for its discourse on religion and the meaning of "nothingness".

History

Kyoto University's forerunner was the founded in Osaka in 1869, which, despite its name, taught physics as well ( is a transcription of a Dutch word

chemie ''Angewandte Chemie'' (, meaning "Applied Chemistry") is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Wiley-VCH on behalf of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker). Publishing formats include feature-length ...

). Later, the , was established in the place of ''Seimi-kyoku'' in 1886, it then transferred to the university's present main campus in the same year. as a part of the Imperial University system was established on June 18, 1897, using the Third Higher School's buildings. The higher school moved to a patch of land across the street, where the Yoshida South Campus stands today, and was integrated into Kyoto University in May 1949 and became the College of Liberal Arts in September 1949. In the same year of the university's establishment, the College of Science and Technology was founded. The College of Law and the College of Medicine were founded in 1899, the College of Letters in 1906, expanding the university's activities to areas outside

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

. After World War II, the current Kyoto University was established by merging the imperial university and the Third Level School, which assumed the duty of teaching liberal arts as the . The faculty was dissolved with the foundation of the in 1992. Kyoto University has since 2004 been incorporated as a national university corporation under a new law which applies to all national universities. Despite the incorporation which has led to increased financial independence and autonomy, Kyoto University is still partly controlled by the . The university's Department of Geophysics and their

Disaster Prevention Research Institute A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

are represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction.Organizations with ties to CCEP
CCEP, accessed March 19, 2011

Campuses

The university has three campuses in Yoshida, Kyoto; in Katsura, Kyoto; in Gokashō, Uji Yoshida Campus is the main campus, with some laboratories located in Uji. The Graduate School of Engineering is currently under process of moving to the newly built Katsura Campus.

Organization

The university has about 22,000 students enrolled in its undergraduate and graduate programs.

Faculties

Kyoto University has 10 faculties. * Faculty of Integrated Human Studies * Faculty of Letters * Faculty of Education *

Faculty of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

* Faculty of Economics * Faculty of Science *

Faculty of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...

* Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences *

Faculty of Engineering Faculty may refer to: * Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States) * Faculty (instrument), an instrument or warra ...

* Faculty of Agriculture

Graduate schools

Kyoto University has 19 graduate schools.

Academic

* Graduate School of Letters * Graduate School of Education * Graduate School of Law * Graduate School of Economics * Graduate School of Science *

Graduate School of Medicine Graduate may refer to: Education * The subject of a graduation, i.e. someone awarded an academic degree ** Alumnus, a former student who has either attended or graduated from an institution * High school graduate, someone who has completed hig ...

* Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences * Graduate School of Engineering * Graduate School of Agriculture * Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies * Graduate School of Energy Science * Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies * Graduate School of Informatics * Graduate School of Biostudies * Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies

Professional

* School of Government * Graduate School of Management * Kyoto University Law School * Kyoto University School of Public Health

Academics

Kyoto University promotes itself as an academic institution fostering a "spirit of freedom". The university claims eleven Nobel Laureates and two Fields Medalists among its faculty and alumni. The university is also known as the starting point for the Kyoto School philosophical movement.

Notable research institutes and facilities

Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics The is a research institute in the field of theoretical physics, attached to Kyoto University in Japan. It was inaugurated in 1952. While the center is often referred to as "YITP", this can be confusing as YITP also stands for the C. N. Yang Inst ...

* Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences * Primate Research Institute * Kosobe Conservatory *

Seto Marine Biological Laboratory The Seto Marine Biological Laboratory (瀬戸臨海実験所, also known as SMBL), is a marine biology field station of Kyoto University. It is located in the small town of Shirahama in Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in ...

Academic rankings

Kyoto University is considered one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, and is consistently ranked second in Japan and in the top ten in Asia by

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...

, Times Higher Education, QS World University Rankings. The university was ranked 3rd in 2008 and 2010 in the ranking " Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai. In another ranking, Japanese prep school Kawaijuku ranked Kyodai as the 2nd best university in Japan.

Research performance

Kyodai is usually considered one of the top research institution in Japan. In fact, it has the second largest number of investment from Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, which is the national grants program for research institutions. This financial support from the Japanese government has a direct effect on Kyodai's research outcomes. According to Thomson Reuters, Kyodai is the No.1 research university in Japan. Its research excellence is especially distinctive in Chemistry (1st in Japan, 4th in the world), Biology & Biochemistry (2nd in Japan, 23rd in the world), Pharmacology & Toxicology (2nd in Japan, 30th in the world), Immunology (3rd in Japan, 25th in the world), Material Science (4th in Japan, 22nd in the world), and Physics (4th in Japan, 25th in the world). (this ranking includes non-educational institutions) In another ranking,

Nikkei Shimbun ''The Nikkei'', also known as , is the flagship publication of Nikkei, Inc. (based in Tokyo) and the world's largest financial newspaper, with a daily circulation exceeding 1.73 million copies. The Nikkei 225, a stock market index for the Tok ...

on 2004/2/16 surveyed about the research standards in

Engineering studies Engineering studies is an interdisciplinary branch of social sciences and humanities devoted to the study of engineers and their activities, often considered a part of science and technology studies (STS), and intersecting with and drawing from e ...

based on Thomson Reuters, Grants in Aid for Scientific Research and questionnaires to the heads of 93 leading Japanese Research Centers. Kyodai was placed in the 10th position (research planning ability 6th) in this ranking. Kyodai also has a high research standard in Social Sciences & Humanities. Repec in January 2011 ranked Kyodai's Institute of Economic Research as Japan's 3rd best economic research institution. Kyodai has provided 6 presidents of the

Japanese Economic Association The Japanese Economic Association (JEA) is the professional body of Japanese economists. The Japanese Economic Association is the largest, with more than 3,000 members, among academic economic associations in Japan. The Association is also one of ...

in its 42-year history, which is the 3rd largest number. Asahi Shimbun summarized the number of academic papers in Japanese major legal journals by university, and Kyodai was ranked 6th for the period between 2005 and 2009.

Graduate school rankings

Kyodai Law School is considered one of the top law schools in Japan. From 2007 to 2017, it was ranked 2nd out of the 74 law schools in Japan for bar examination pass ratio, at 79.93%. In 2019, Kyodai Law School became 1st out of the 72 law schools in Japan, with a pass ratio of 62.69%.

Eduniversal Eduniversal is a university ranking business by the French consulting company and rating agency ''SMBG'' specialized in Higher Education. Founded in 1994, one of the main goals of Eduniversal is to provide a tool, for students all around the world, ...

ranked Japanese business schools, and the Faculty of Economics in Kyodai is placed 4th in Japan (111th in the world). Kyoto University has the second highest deviation and difficulty level after the University of Tokyo as a university in Japan.

Alumni rankings

Kyodai alumni are distinctively successful in Japanese industries such as shown below. According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Kyodai have the 10th best employment rate in 400 major companies in Japan. However, it has to be noted that this lower ranking position is because of the large number of alumni who become government bureaucrats, which is 2nd largest among Japanese universities. In fact, alumni of Kyodai's average salary is the 5th best in Japan, according to the PRESIDENT. Mines ParisTech : Professional Ranking World Universities ranks Kyodai as 5th in the world in 2011 in terms of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies.

Popularity and selectivity

Kyodai is one of the most selective universities in Japan. Its entrance difficulty is usually considered one of the top among 180 national and public universities.

Evaluation from Business World

Athletics

Kyoto University competes in 48 sports. The university is a member of the

Kansai Big Six Baseball League is a collegiate baseball league located in central Kansai region of Japan, stretching from Hyōgo in the west to Kyoto in the east. The league joined the All Japan University Baseball Federation in 1951. Members National Championships Ch ...

Controversy

Members of the university's American football team, the Kyoto University Gangsters, were arrested in 2006 for

gang rape Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Multidisciplinary Re ...

, which had been recently added to the

Penal Code A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

in January 2005 following the

Super Free or its shortened form was an inter-university rave event club, mainly comprising students of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. The leader of the club along with various students from Waseda and other universities in Tokyo were arrested and co ...

rape controversy. The three students had forced a female university student to drink liquor to the point of unconsciousness, at which point they gang-raped her. They were all convicted.

Notable people

Notable people from academic are eleven Nobel Prize winners,

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

winners

Heisuke Hironaka is a Japanese mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his contributions to algebraic geometry. Career Hironaka entered Kyoto University in 1949. After completing his undergraduate studies at Kyoto University, he received his ...

(1970) and Shigefumi Mori (1990) and one Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize winner

Kiyosi Itô was a Japanese mathematician who made fundamental contributions to probability theory, in particular, the theory of stochastic processes. He invented the concept of stochastic integral and stochastic differential equation, and is known as the fo ...

. In addition, the lecturer against vaccine conspiracies received the

John Maddox Prize The John Maddox Prize is an international prize administered by Sense about Science in partnership with ''Nature''. One or two individuals are recognised annually by the Prize for their work promoting sound science and evidence despite hostility. ...

: Riko Muranaka, winner in 2017 for her combat of anti-

HPV vaccination Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines that prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). Available HPV vaccines protect against either two, four, or nine types of HPV. All HPV vaccines protect against at least HP ...

. Nobel Prize"> File:Yukawa.jpg, Hideki Yukawa, Physics, 1949 File:Tomonaga.jpg, Shinichiro Tomonaga, Physics, 1965 File:Kenichi Fukui.jpg, Kenichi Fukui, Chemistry, 1981 File:Susumu Tonegawa Photo.jpg,

Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese scientist who was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of V(D)J recombination, the Genetics, genetic mechanism which produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize ...

, Physiology or Medicine, 1987 File:Rioji Noyori.jpg, Ryōji Noyori, Chemistry, 2001 File:Makoto_Kobayashi-press_conference_Dec_07th,_2008-2b.jpg,

Makoto Kobayashi is a Japanese physicist known for his work on CP-violation who was awarded one-fourth of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quar ...

, Physics, 2008 File:Toshihide Masukawa-press conference Dec 07th, 2008-4.jpg, Toshihide Maskawa, Physics, 2008 File:Shinya yamanaka10.jpg, Shinya Yamanaka, Physiology or Medicine, 2012 File:Isamu Akasaki 201111.jpg, Isamu Akasaki, Physics, 2014 File:Tasuku Honjo 201311.jpg, Tasuku Honjo, Physiology or Medicine, 2018 File:Akira Yoshino cropped 2 Akira Yoshino 201910.jpg, Akira Yoshino, Chemistry, 2019 File:Osachi_Hamaguchi_posing.jpg, Osachi Hamaguchi, Prime Minister of Japan from 1929 to 1931 File:Fumimaro Konoe(cropped).jpg, Prince

Fumimaro Konoe Prince was a Japanese politician and prime minister. During his tenure, he presided over the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the breakdown in relations with the United States, which ultimately culminated in Japan's entry into World W ...

, Prime Minister of Japan from 1940 to 1941 File:Kijūrō_Shidehara.jpg, Kijūrō Shidehara, Prime Minister of Japan from 1945 to 1946 File:片山哲.jpg, Tetsu Katayama, Prime Minister of Japan from 1947 to 1948 File:Hayato_Ikeda_1962.jpg, Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan from 1960 to 1964 File:總統李登輝先生玉照_(國民大會實錄).jpg,

Lee Teng-hui Lee Teng-hui (; 15 January 192330 July 2020) was a Taiwanese statesman and economist who served as President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under the 1947 Constitution and chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000. He was the fir ...

President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) The president of the Republic of China, now often referred to as the president of Taiwan, is the head of state of the Republic of China (ROC), as well as the commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Armed Forces. The position once had aut ...

from 1988 to 2000

Notes

References

External links

Kyoto University

The 10th US-Japan Symposium on Drug Delivery Systems
{{Authority control Kansai Six (original) Kansai Big Six Japanese national universities National Seven Universities Forestry education 1897 establishments in Japan Educational institutions established in 1897 Super Global Universities Kansai Collegiate American Football League