(3) Further Enrichment of Student Learning and Growth

As can be seen in profound connections between learning at university and endeavors such as resolution of real-life societal problems and development of cutting-edge technologies, such learning deals with issues for which there are no set “answers,” or for which “answers” formulated provisionally may change from day to day. These characteristics make university learning an inherently sophisticated exploratory activity. Surely we can say that the learning and individual inquiry-based activities that students undertake at university are seamlessly connected with the full-scale research activities that lie beyond them.

In this sense, undergraduate (Bachelor’s degree) education is key to achieving the R2030 Challenge Design vision of a next-generation research university. We need to work on giving shape to the concept of “expansive re-coupling of research and education” that is deeply connected with undergraduate education and contributes to its enhancement, through inquiry-based approaches that extend and deepen undergraduate students’ learning by enabling the discovery and resolution of new societal issues, and equipping them with a broad general education through interchange with other disciplinary fields, while remaining grounded in the fields and modes of learning in undergraduate major education.

To cultivate students’ inquiry-based capabilities and achieve further advancements in learning and growth, a priority task will be to revisit our current approaches in curricular, extracurricular, and international exchange fields and provide enhanced opportunities for inquiry-based learning tailored to the shift in focus, and to construct a coordinated system for appropriate selection and provision of support for such inquiry-based learning opportunities. It will also be important to create mechanisms for students themselves to ascertain (visualize) their own growth, in line with the ideas of utilizing valuable resources generated by the recoupling of research and education, and establishing opportunities for autonomous learning in the context of linkages with society.

(i) Developing fields to learning to enhance exploratory capabilities

a) Advancements in classes

Firstly, in discussions of how to create more effective inquiry-based learning opportunities within classes in the formal curriculum, there is a need to consider the following points:

• Responding to changes in student awareness and the changing demands resulting therefrom (enabling home-based and distance learning to raise time-effectiveness, etc.)
• Surveying and analyzing study methods that may help improve learning outcomes (revision using video-on-demand materials, effective utilization of time through skip-ahead learning, etc.)
• Sharing teaching practice designed to enhance learning outcomes (effective use of TAs and ESs, team teaching by multiple faculty members, use of chat functions for interactivity, etc.)
• Development and enhancement of IT infrastructure (university-wide Zoom licenses, installation of video cameras for filming and streaming in all classrooms, adoption of the video management platform Panopto, video filming studio and video editing support, etc.)

We consider initiatives in relation to the above points to be connected with qualitative shifts in face-to-face classes, based on insights gained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to secure these kinds of class environments, there is a need not only to support faculty members but also tackle issues such as promoting DX, enhancing the capabilities of TAs and ESs, enabling graduate (Doctoral) students to participate in education, and training and assigning highly skilled specialists in educational design. It will be essential also to clarify the advantages of face-to-face teaching and learning, at the same time as making maximal use of insights into the potentials of online teaching and learning gained through the COVID-19 pandemic.

We believe that there is a need to design face-to-face learning opportunities not simply in terms of sharing the same physical space, but also with the aim of “expansive re-coupling of research and education,” raising the quality of learning by adding new forms of value that help enhance Ritsumeikan University’s research capacity. It is important to develop class environments and infrastructure necessary to achieve this re-coupling in ways that proactively advance qualitative shifts in teaching and learning. These are initiatives that cannot be realized through the unilateral efforts of faculty and students alone. We believe that the utilization of DX will drive further advancements that help facilitate the sharing of faculty members’ research outcomes in educational practice.

b) Further enhancement of global education

The next topic is global education. A key theme in the R2030 Challenge Design and the post-SGU phase is the further promotion and advancement of the global education systems that Ritsumeikan University has built through the R2020 period. It will be especially important to respond to the new environment that has evolved through the COVID-19 pandemic with novel approaches to global education, including the use of international activity bases and online platforms in the post-COVID era. Even during the pandemic, we were able to develop new, high-quality online study abroad programs with international partners with which Ritsumeikan University has a history of close collaboration. We will expand this experience to other universities and institutions overseas, make progress toward the formation of new global education hubs, and develop new study abroad programs. In the area of long-term study abroad (student exchange), we will work to secure new outbound places in order to give students a wider choice of exchange destinations, with a focus on institutions in high demand among our students.

c) Enhancement of diverse community-building initiatives

Next is the formation of communities both within and beyond the university. There will be no change in the way these communities are positioned as important places for students and other constituents to cultivate their skills of inquiry, and we will continue to support the formation of communities and their vitalization of activities in student life. A wide range of activities relating to community formation have been pursued in the context of R2020, including RIMIX and RI-sA. We will build on these to create new programs and further enhance activities in areas such as community exchange and social contribution. It will be important to apply online communication methods and the like, in addition to inter-campus exchange, community exchange, and utilization of external resources, to further expand opportunities for inquiry-based learning that enhances students’ autonomous, active learning.

d) New advancements in Ritsumeikan Sports

In the area of sports, as evidenced by developments such as the enactment of the Basic Act on Sports, and the programs of the Sports Agency established for the hosting of the 2020(+1) Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, there are high expectations in regard to the value of sports and their role in society. Ritsumeikan University has been working to enhance sporting activities as part of the extracurricular activities sphere, but taking into account the abovementioned developments, we will now consider the positioning and approach to sports afresh. The key to doing so will be the formulation of a sports promotion strategy to generate social coexistence value out of Ritsumeikan’s sporting culture and initiatives aligned with a new articulation of the Academy’s sports policies, informed by changes in society since the start of R2020, when we established the Ritsumeikan Declaration on Sports. Sports have educational dimensions (character formation and moral development as required to build contemporary societies undergoing accelerated change), as well as ethical dimensions (respect for implicit values such as fair play and mutual respect under conditions of equality), intellectual and technical dimensions (techniques and tactics for the skillful control of physical power, emphasis on ingenuity and strategy), and organizational dimensions (configuration of groups in a game context, building of organizations and allocation of roles). We need to respect all of these dimensions and pursue initiatives that reflect the intrinsic value of university sports from the standpoint of developing positive relationships between students and sports. In addition, fostering understanding of the intrinsic value of university sports among students will aid the enhancement and strengthening of activities in sporting fields, as well as the formation of the Academy’s identity through sports. Advancing these goals through our sports promotion strategy will also contribute to the cultivation of students with an inquiring spirit and capacity for exploration: future talent befitting our vision of a next-generation research university.

Moreover, there is a need to redesign scholarships and initiatives for student safety, security, and health that provide the foundations of student activities, and programs enabling the involvement and participation of students in university development.

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(ii) Toward the enrichment of learning in inquiry-based settings

In this context, it will be important to initiate discussion of the ideal mix of face-to-face, online, and hybrid platforms for inquiry-based learning, and how best to achieve such a mix. We also need to develop and verify new methods. Advancements such as digital twins and virtual campuses are being imbued with a greater sense of realism as universities move toward a new model of operation that combines the real and the virtual in the near future. Challenges here include, for example, (1) to leverage online class formats for the expansion of educational courses leading to external qualifications; (2) to establish team teaching approaches (models for collaboration between instructors, TAs, ESs, specialized professionals, and external parties); and (3) to explore approaches to learning support that involve bringing students’ learning data together on an integrated “Ritsumeikan Data Platform” and individually optimizes support based on the data and tailored to each students’ aspirations. These would require organizational restructuring within the university and need to be considered in conjunction with a review of the division of roles between faculty and administrative staff.

In this context, there is a need for systems that coordinate and support opportunities for learning and growth, with a view to transforming university education into a realm of inquiry-based learning and identifying the optimal ways for students to experience such learning so that it connects with their individual sense of growth. We anticipate that by proactively developing such systems it will be possible to generate a positive learning and growth cycle, whereby students gain an actual sense of learning and growing, connect it to the next steps in their learning, share their learning with others, and thereby inspire further learning. As a result, students will be able to acquire the exploratory capabilities needed to embark on their preferred career paths, solve a variety of problems, and realize a way of living that is true to themselves.

(4) Roles Expected of Graduate Students (the “ideal graduate student” envisaged by Ritsumeikan University)

The R2030 Challenge Design aims to produce individuals who keep learning throughout their lives. Advancing to graduate school and pursuing recurrent education after graduation are important ways of realizing this kind of ongoing learning. Above all, graduate students are expected to play a central role in achieving our vision of a “next-generation research university.” The next ten years will see fundamental changes in the nature of Ritsumeikan University’s graduate schools, along with major shifts in the ideal types of graduate students the university seeks to cultivate. When discussing these ideals, there will be a need to take adequate account the diverse attributes of graduate students, including their disciplinary characteristics, career intentions, academic programs, and differences in background, including working adults and international students. It will also be essential to augment our professional graduate schools in areas where advanced professionals are in high demand. The Ritsumeikan University Graduate Schools will view their students as practitioners of “independent research” that continue to explore new horizons, and pursue a mission that can be described as the cultivation of individuals with the exploratory capabilities to tackle novel research topics in line with societal needs and to contribute to the generation of social coexistence value, at the same time as producing academic value in the global dimension.

(5) Future Advancement of Graduate School Academic Programs

Ritsumeikan University’s campuses are hope to numerous research organizations, research institutes, and research centers. One of the distinguishing features is the existence of research organizations situated under the direct jurisdiction of the President, such as R-GIRO and the Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research Institute (AJI). In AY 2021, the latter Institute launched the AJI Graduate School Partnership Program for Next-Generation Researcher Development, in which Senior Researchers are appointed exclusively from among people who have completed Doctoral degrees at Ritsumeikan University, with the aim of cultivating young researchers’ exploratory capabilities and contributing to their career development. This program seeks to create a nurturing setting that integrates research and education, and is building a seamless growth environment for the cultivation of young researchers. Its specific initiatives include (1) the AJI Frontier Seminar, (2) the AJI Research Enhancement Program, and (3) the AJI Advanced Support for Academic Writing in English. These initiatives are part of generating a distinctive system of training at organizational level, while still allowing graduate students to focus on their research. There is also potential for diverse deployment of this system in other research hubs. As this example shows, some advance initiatives toward the R2030 goal of “expansive re-coupling of research and education” are already underway. Going forward, in a wide variety of research organizations, institutes, and centers, we will be developing research, education, and training environments that enable graduate students engaged in research to grow through direct experience of connecting with world-leading research.

Fostering young researchers is a primary mission of our research organs, and in the Research Enhancement Plan Phase IV formulated in AY 2021 the provision of research support for graduate students is positioned as a key issue. As we expand scholarship programs such as the NEXT Fellowship Program and RARA Student Fellows, we anticipate that graduate students will form “nodes” of research, organizing research groups and exercising leadership grounded in their individual specializations. To achieve this, we will move forward with initiatives for activity partnerships among research institutes and centers, integrating and transcending existing research fields with data science, and graduate student training in conjunction with joint research projects with industry partners.

It will also be important to create opportunities for graduate students to pursue research in partnership with research institutions outside Japan. We will pay close attention to the aspirations and preferences of graduate students as we work to expand research opportunities for them.

Moreover, we will develop conditions that will enable even larger intakes of international students with high levels of interest in and motivation for undertaking research in Japan, and further enhance opportunities for peer learning with undergraduate and graduate students on campus.