Message from the University President
I am Takeshi Nagayasu, and I was appointed to the post of president on October 1, 2023. Ever since Nagasaki University established the Center for Gender Equality in 2009 it has striven to promote and establish programs to support a balance between work and research, and child-raising. In the year 2015 the Center’s name was changed to the Center for Diversity and Inclusion upon its adoption as an Initiative for the Implementation of the Diversity Research Environment (Distinctive Features Type). This Initiative is part of the Science and Technology Human Resource Development Support Project, funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Furthermore, in 2018 the Center was adopted as an Initiative for the Implementation of the Diversity Research Environment (Advanced Type), and has pushed ahead with its efforts. Under the banner of “realizing a diverse environment in which everyone who studies or works at Nagasaki University can fully demonstrate their individual capabilities,” as well as initiatives already successfully implemented, we have pursued the improvement of female researchers’ international research abilities, the reassessment of ways of working, and the reform of faculty and personnel’s awareness. As a result of these efforts, the proportion of female faculty at Nagasaki University is top among all Japan’s national universities.
In order that all of our faculty and personnel can work at Nagasaki University with peace of mind, we have prepared a support system enabling flexible responses to diversified lifestyles. The initiatives in which the local community is involved in the placing of “Nursing Care Concierges,” assistance in the balancing of work (research) and nursing care, and the fostering of supporters to aid caregivers has drawn the attention of businesses and universities outside of Nagasaki University. Furthermore, in order to bolster our responses to child-rearing, on April 1, 2017 the Nagasaki University Bunkyo Omoyai Nursery School was opened as the first corporate-sponsored nursery school in Japan to be established by a national university corporation. During the day all those who work or study at the University keep a kind eye on the nursery school infants strolling through the campus.
There is also a large number of female researchers equipped with high research abilities working at the University. In addition to all sorts of research support systems we have established an “Overseas Dispatch Support System” to further promote international activities, and the “Nagasaki University Women Researchers Awards ,” which is presented in recognition of outstanding research results. As the frontrunner in diversity promotion at national universities we will carry on developing systems that enable as many as possible female researchers to be active from an early stage and on a continuous basis.
Nagasaki University cites the realization of becoming a university that contributes to “planetary healthcare” toward the resolution of complex and diversifying issues we face on a global scale. Needless to say, what lies at the bedrock of this are diversity, equity and inclusion. In order to achieve a workplace and research environment in which all those who study or work at Nagasaki University can vibrantly exercise their individuality and skills, and furthermore for the sake of a future where Nagasaki and the whole of Japanese society shines, we will steadily continue to press ahead hand-in-hand with the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.
I hope that we can rely on everyone for their ongoing appreciation of and cooperation with the Center’s projects.
Message from the Center Director
I would like to send out my greetings to one and all as the director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, a post that I was newly appointed to in October 2023. I have steeled myself with the knowledge that I must put my heart and soul into my efforts in order to respect and expand upon the foundations that the previous directors of the Center built up.
Thanks to the hitherto endeavors of my predecessors and the Center’s staff, the Center for Diversity and Inclusion has supported faculty, personnel and students from an array of different backgrounds, and responded warmly to each and every one of them. The Center has set high objectives for the improvement of the working and education environment, acquired budgets and implemented its goals. While there is nothing remarkable in this itself, we have made steady and continual progress. However, despite this diligence I feel that one of the anxieties of our organization is that these activities have not really become widely known. I hope to make it known that within the University there is a center supporting careers and life plans called the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, and that it is staffed with people who strive in their work; I hope to make it a center that stands together with the many people at Nagasaki University, sometimes taking action and sometimes support.
Women were a minority in the Faculty of Engineering where I studied. In the department I was studying at there were only four female students, and right from the time I sought to pursue a career in society I experienced a great deal of prejudice and harassment. However, talking with young women studying engineering-related subjects I feel that the situation has improved tremendously. Nonetheless, looking at our nation from a global perspective there has been little improvement in the overwhelmingly low proportion of female science students in Japan. The average percentage of female students selecting science courses at universities in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations is 52%; in Japan it is 27%, and in the field of engineering that I’m affiliated with the OECD average is 26% while the Japanese average is 16%.* Compared to the liberal arts, it can be said that science is still not a ‘normal’ choice for Japanese women. I think it would be good if the Center for Diversity and Inclusion could get in touch with junior high and high school students in order to increase the number of female scientists.
It is my hope that in the near future we will be able to create an inclusive environment in which not only gender but the diversity of people with other backgrounds including race, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities and so on will be accepted. Since my own field of specialization is architecture I intend to exert my energy in the creation of spaces. I would be more than happy to from anybody about their problems or ideas.
This greeting is a little prosaic, but I hope that I can rely on everybody for their ongoing support and cooperation.
* OECD, The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle, September 2021.
