Challenges to the Creation of a New "Environmental Studies
 
Satoshi YOKOYAMA
Dean,
Graduate School of Environmental Studies

The Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, was established in 2001, gathering a wide range of disciplines from science, engineering, and the humanities and social sciences. Ever since, 2,841 master's degree and 393 doctoral degree holders have graduated from our Graduate School, and are active in various fields such as universities, research institutes, private companies, governmental ministries and agencies, and municipal governments.

Our mission is to build a new academic discipline, "Environmental Studies," by connecting the different disciplines of science, engineering, humanities, and social sciences with the two principles of "Sustainability" and "Safety and Security.” As well as further developing research in existing academic fields that have been studied to date, our goal is to foster "generalists with specialties" and "specialists who can serve as leaders in solving global environmental problems by comprehensively considering both "Sustainability" and "Safety and Security".

We believe that environmental studies consist of “Basic Environmental Studies” to diagnose problems and “Clinical Environmental Studies” to treat them, but in recent years, the problems have become more and more complicated, making it difficult to find clues for treatment. Japan has entered an era of a declining population. The population decline and aging of remote islands and rural areas are particularly serious. The negative spiral leads to an inability to manage forests, an increase in abandoned farmland, and a high incidence of animal damage, which in turn makes it difficult to live and leads people to leave their communities. Each of these problems is interrelated and requires a different approach to treatment. For example, the "Consulting Firm for Clinical Environmental Studies" conducted by “Center for Education and Research on Sustainable Co-Development” creates a forum where local stakeholders and researchers collaborate across disciplines to discuss issues and make various proposals. As a multi-disciplinary graduate school, our strength is that we can not only diagnose and treat problems, but also create new value by working with various actors in the field.

We are constantly trying new things to address various environmental issues, and in FY2021 we launched a new research program, “Global-scale Environmental Issues.” we have selected 10 issues including "Climate Change" that are deeply related to the SDGs, and several faculty members from different departments act as organizers to conduct symposiums, workshops, and excursions. In addition, from FY2022, the "Co-creation of Knowledge Program," an educational program to promote interdisciplinary joint research in collaboration with graduate students, multiple faculty members, and various members of society, has been launched for the doctoral adult students. In the future, this program will be developed into a recurrent education program in cooperation with private companies and other organizations in the Tokai region.

We would like to create a new "Environmental Studies" by studying and working hard together with those who can be leaders in solving global environmental issues beyond the boundaries of academic fields, as well as mastering research in existing academic fields.