About
Message from the Dean
In recent years, the dramatic development of AI and data science has brought about breakthroughs in science and technology that support our daily lives, such as recognition and generation of images, voice, and even language, and automatic operation of automobiles and ships under complex situations. At the same time, we face many difficult international challenges, such as balancing global environmental protection and economic growth, and international conflicts and terrorism that destroy our lives. In this unstable and rapidly changing world, we need to develop human resources who can lead the world with a deep knowledge to understand and use advanced science and technology, as well as high ethical standards based on universal humanity. In addition, in a rapidly changing society, a new system of knowledge that transcends conventional academic frameworks and fuses different fields of study is required.
The Interfaculty Graduate School of Innovative and Practical Studies was launched in 2021 as a unique graduate school that combines the university’s diverse academic fields and provides education that integrates humanities and sciences across disciplines, and in 2023 our first students successfully completed their studies and left for the world. The Interfaculty Graduate School of Innovative and Practical Studies is a collaboration of four graduate schools of Yokohama National University (the Graduate School of International Social Sciences, Graduate School of Urban Innovation, Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, and Graduate School of Engineering Science), with approximately 180 faculty members offering more than 500 courses in a variety of fields. We believe that by studying here, students will be able to explore the “forest of knowledge” that spans the various graduate schools within the university, freely absorb knowledge that is useful for their own research, and take on the challenge of integrating it to produce novel results. We hope to see more and more innovative and practical research results that will solve the problems of human society in the near future by practicing the integration of knowledge from different fields.
Explore the forest of knowledge. Integrate your discoveries!
Outline of the Degree Program
Develop human resources who can play practical roles in the creation and promotion of new values and services in Society 5.0 by integrating all areas of education and research of YNU based on an understanding of human beings as components of society and advanced data science techniques.
★ Created based on the illustration of Society 5.0 at the website of the Cabinet Office.
The program offers a learning style by which students can explore and integrate the knowledge they need from the university’s collection of knowledge to produce research results that contribute to the construction, maintenance, and enhancement of Society 5.0.
Organizational Chart
The curriculum for each student consists of courses taught by faculty members across the university, excluding the Graduate School of Education, and an interdisciplinary sub-supervisor is assigned to each student in addition to the lead supervisor. Faculty members from existing departments marked with ●●●● in the chart (a group of faculty members who are in charge of the degree program) provide instructions and supervision to students of the degree program by sharing information with each other.
