Osaka Prefecture University’s Organization for Research Promotion (ORP) was newly established in April 2017 with the objective of “building a global hub university that contributes to industry, the economy, culture, and education by promoting cross-disciplinary (and cross-departmental) research that transcends the boundaries of colleges and graduate schools.” The ORP, in addition to promoting cross-disciplinary and pioneering empirical research within the university, is also furthering the university’s strategic and visionary education and research programs. Positioned as an organization that integrates our Research Organization for the 21st Century, which serves as a base for preparing various planning proposals, and our Research Organization for University-Community Collaborations, which aims to contribute to the local community by ensuring that intellectual property and cutting-edge research findings obtained through university collaborations with industry and government are reinvested into society and by offering various open lectures, our job is to facilitate the organic functioning and comprehensive development of the respective roles of these two organizations.

The ORP consists of the Research Center for the 21st Century, which has inherited the mantle of the Research Organization for the 21st Century as our core research facility; and the Radiation Research Center, the Center for Research and Development of Bioresources, the Research Center for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy, and the Research and Development Center for the Plant Factory which take over from the Research Organization for University-Community Collaborations. Moreover, our Research Center for Advanced Sciences and the Collaboration Research Center for Science and Technology have been established to provide support for these facilities.

At ORP, our basic policy is to promote voluntary cross-sectional planning (empirical research and university collaborations with industry and government) on the part of faculty members across the boundaries of discipline (and department). In other words, we foster new pioneering and stimulating interdisciplinary research and research oriented to the solution of local problems, and actively promote the formation of bases for technological development and the creation of innovation that seek to encourage collaborative activities between the university and government and industry. In addition, we are also endeavoring to support planning and management that will contribute to the University’s development by formulating and proposing basic research strategies over the medium and longer term from a glocal perspective based on the latest trends in local industry and the international community. By putting these activity policies into practice, it is our aim to become a global research university by further enhancing and revitalizing the three pillars of education, research, and local contribution, which represent the University’s social mission.

Thus far, the twenty-first century has seen remarkable developments in the various areas of culture and education, science and technology, and the industry and economy, which have deepened and become fused with each other in intricate ways. Moreover, from a global macroscopic perspective, harmony between human life and the environment that surrounds it is also necessary. By playing the dual role of being a research incubator that fosters emerging research in a developmental manner and a think tank that relays information to the prefectural citizenry and government based on global trends, ORP bears a responsibility to honor the trust of the surrounding community. In addition, with a view to integrating our University with Osaka City University, the formulation of a research strategy relating to the formation of a center of global research based on synergies between the two universities will constitute a challenge for the ORP in the days to come.

We humbly ask for your warm support and encouragement for the ORP’s activities toward realizing the University’s basic philosophy of becoming an advanced research university that honors the trust of a community leaping onto the world stage.

Norifumi Fujimura
Director / Organization for Research Promotion