Research Grants for Undergraduate Students | Tomoki Kamo, Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management
2024.01.24
As January begins, the university enters the final phase of the fall semester. Students get serious about preparing for final exams and become engrossed in writing their required papers. The atmosphere on campus takes on an end-of-semester feel.
Once faculty members have graded final exams and reviewed submitted papers to assign grades, the university moves on to the general entrance examinations. The Faculty of Policy Management will hold its exam on Saturday, February 17; the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies on Sunday, February 18; and the Faculty of Nursing and Medical Care will have its first-stage exam on Sunday, February 11, and its second-stage exam on Tuesday, February 20. Then, in March, the university bids farewell to its graduating students and begins preparations for the new semester's lectures.
Meanwhile, in February and March, students have the time to engage with the larger research interests and more fundamental questions they could not tackle during the semester. Many students take advantage of the campus's research grant system to venture out to various parts of Japan and the world.
Today, I would like to talk about how SFC's research grant system for students also includes undergraduates.
The phrase "research grants for undergraduate students" might not sound particularly striking. However, while "scholarships for undergraduates" are common, "research grants for undergraduates" are rare.
Generally, systems that provide the necessary research funds are targeted at graduate students. But SFC includes undergraduates. In other words, SFC believes that undergraduates also conduct research. To obtain competitive research funding, undergraduates, too, must formulate a research theme, create a research proposal, and estimate the budget items necessary to carry out their research.
This system design is related to the fact that undergraduate students at SFC, particularly in the Faculty of Policy Management and the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, are allowed to enroll in research groups (what are known as "seminars"), which offer more specialized educational research, starting from their first year.
Typically, undergraduates join seminars in their third year. The timing at which students can begin taking research groups as part of SFC's educational and research framework is surprisingly early. Of course, students are free to choose when to start taking a research group. Why was such a research group system designed? It strongly reflects the unique characteristics of SFC's approach to education and research.
For example, the study of Policy Management at SFC, which champions a "problem-solving, problem-finding" model of education and research, operates on the understanding that societal problems do not necessarily manifest within a single academic field and that perspectives from multiple academic disciplines are necessary to derive effective policy judgments to solve them.
While there are fields like economics, which targets economic activities; law, which deals with legal matters; and political science, which analyzes political phenomena, Policy Management has a different character from these existing academic domains. If we consider existing fields to be "discipline-oriented," then Policy Management (which you could substitute with "SFC studies") can be called "issue-oriented." To be more precise, Policy Management, while building upon discipline-oriented studies, is considered an issue-oriented field that explores the direction for solving social problems and examines policies as concrete solutions (for example, the five-volume book series "Unlocking Policy Management" published in the spring of 2023 can be understood as visualizing the Policy Management practiced at SFC through five distinct issues).
SFC faculty assume that prospective students who agree with this philosophy will choose to apply to SFC's faculties, pass the entrance examinations, and enroll. That is why SFC expects students to take research groups from their first year and has designed a grant system to provide the necessary research funding. Of course, we also welcome students who explore their research interests after enrolling at SFC. Therefore, at SFC, students can freely change their research group to match their evolving interests.
The selection of recipients for this semester's research grants, established on campus based on these principles, has now been completed. The students receiving these grants are likely now preparing to venture out to various parts of Japan and the world in February and March.
The international order is currently undergoing significant change. Perceptions of the values and interests shared by the international community are in flux, and the rules of the game—the institutions and norms that shape international relations—are wavering. If the order is indeed changing, then the seeds of a new order exist in the present. This being the case, it is necessary to sensitively perceive these changes in the order and conduct a calm analysis of the current situation.
To cultivate such sensitivity and composure, I want SFC's undergraduate students to actively use the research grant system and take advantage of the long summer and spring breaks to venture out into the wider world. I have high expectations that you will return to campus for the new semester having grown significantly from the experience.