Osaka University

About Osaka University

Osaka University (大阪大学 Ōsaka daigaku), or Handai (阪大 Handai), is a national university located in Osaka, Japan. It is the sixth oldest university in Japan as the Osaka Prefectural Medical College, and one of Japan's National Seven Universities. Numerous prominent scientists have worked at Osaka University such as the Nobel Laureate in Physics Hideki Yukawa.

It is the 4th best ranked higher education institution in Japan (96th worldwide) in 2016 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

History of Osaka University

Academic traditions of the university reach back to Kaitokudō (懐徳堂), an Edo-period school for local citizens founded in 1724, and Tekijuku (適塾), a school of Rangaku for samurai founded by Ogata Kōan in 1838. The spirit of the university's human sciences is believed to be intimately rooted in Kaitokudo, whereas that of the natural and applied sciences, including medicine, is widely believed to be based on Tekijuku.

Osaka University traces its origin back to 1869 when Osaka Prefectural Medical School was founded in downtown Osaka. The school was later transformed into the Osaka Prefectural Medical College with university status by the University Ordinance (Imperial Ordinance No. 388 of 1918) in 1919. The college merged with the newly founded College of Science to form Osaka Imperial University（大阪帝國大学） in 1931. Osaka Imperial University was inaugurated as the sixth imperial university in Japan. As part of the University, Osaka Technical College was later included to form the school of Engineering two years later. The university was eventually renamed Osaka University in 1947.

Merging with Naniwa High School and Osaka High School as a result of the government's education system reform in 1949, Osaka University started its postwar era with five faculties: Science, Medicine, Engineering, Letters, and Law. After that, faculties, graduate schools, and research institutes have been successively established. Among these are the School of Engineering Science, the first of its kind among Japanese national universities, which draws upon the excellence of both sciences and engineering disciplines, and the School of Human Sciences, which covers its cross-disciplinary research interest as broadly as psychology, sociology, and education. Built on the then-existing faculties, 10 graduate schools were set up as part of the government's education system reform program in 1953. Two graduate schools, the Graduate School of Language and Culture and the cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional Osaka School of International Public Policy, add to the list, making the number of graduate schools reach 12 in 1994.

In 1993, Osaka University Hospital was relocated from the Nakanoshima campus in downtown Osaka to the Suita campus, completing the implementation of the university's plan to integrate the scattered facilities into the Suita and Toyonaka campuses. In October 2007, a merger between Osaka University and Osaka University of Foreign Studies was completed. The merger made Osaka University one of two national universities in the country with a School of Foreign Studies (with Tokyo University of Foreign Studies). In addition, the merger made the university the largest national university in the country.

In 2009, Osaka University implemented a major revision of its website. The result is a website much more accessible and informative to persons not versed in the Japanese language — a site much more user-friendly to international exchange students, international researchers, and expatriates living in the Osaka area. Currently, thanks to the work of the "Creative Unit," virtually all Osaka University's web pages come in pairs — a Japanese page and the same page in English. These pairings include frequent updates on symposiums, seminars, and other events open to staff, students and, often, the general public.

Accreditation

• Institutional Accreditation or Recognition - Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan
• Year of first Accreditation - 1952
• Other Specialized or Programmatic Accreditations - Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA)

Rankings

General rankings

• The university has been ranked 3rd in 2009 and 4th in 2008 and 2010 in the ranking "Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai.
• In another ranking, Japanese prep school Kawaijuku ranked Handai as the 3rd best university in Japan.
• It is recognized as a leading university, especially in the basic sciences, technology and medical field. The university was ranked the 43rd among the world's best universities and the 3rd best Japanese university in 2009, according to the THE-QS World University Rankings.
• In 2011, it came 45th in the QS World University Rankings, four places higher than the previous year (in 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings parted ways to produce separate rankings).

Research performance

• Handai is one of the top research institutions in Japan. According to Thomson Reuters, Handai is the 3rd best research university in Japan.
• Its research excellence is especially distinctive in Biology & Biochemistry (4th in Japan, 31st in the world), Materials Science (4th in Japan, 15th in the world), Physics (3rd in Japan, 24th in the world), Chemistry (5th in Japan, 14th in the world) and Immunology (1st in Japan, 4th in the world).
• Weekly Diamond also reported that Handai has the 7th highest research standard in Japan in terms of research funding per researchers in COE Program. In the same article, it's also ranked 16th in terms of the quality of education by GP funds per student.
• Handai also has a high research standard in Economics. Repec in Jan 2011 ranked Handai's Economic department as Japan's 2nd best economic research university.
• Handai has provided 5 presidents of Japanese Economic Association in its 42-year history, and this number is 4th largest.
• In addition, Nikkei Shimbun　on 2004/2/16 surveyed about the research standards in Engineering studies based on Thomson Reuters, Grants in Aid for Scientific Research and questionnaires to heads of 93 leading Japanese Research Centers, and Handai was placed top (research planning ability 2nd/informative ability of research outcome 5th/ability of business-academia collaboration 9th) in this ranking.
• According to the QS World University Rankings of September 2013, Handai was ranked 55th in the world, and 3rd in Japan.
• Furthermore, Handai got the 4th place at the number of patents accepted (171) during 2009 among Japanese Universities.

Graduate school rankings

• Handai Law School is considered as one of top law schools in Japan, as it was ranked 7th in terms of the number of successful candidates of Japanese Bar Examination in 2010.

Alumni rankings

• According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Handai have the 7th best employment rate in 400 major companies in Japan.
• École des Mines de Paris ranks Handai as 92nd in the world in 2011 in terms of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies.

Student life @Osaka University

Campus Stores, Cafeterias, ...

There are business establishments such as cafeterias and stores on the Toyonaka, Suita, and Minoh campuses. Their business hours are shown in the table below.
Please find maps showing the locations of these facilities on the Toyonaka, Suita, and Minoh campuses below.

Suita Campus 

Minoh Campus

Services of Osaka University

Regular health checkup for students

• Regular checkups for students are conducted every April.
• All students must get a checkup. Please check the schedule for checkups on the bulletin board or Health Care Center website.
• Be sure to bring your student ID card to the checkup.

Student Centers

At these Student Centers, graduate and undergraduate students of Osaka University can be provided with services such as: applications and procedures for financial aid, applications and procedures for exemption from enrollment and tuition fees, procedures for extracurricular activities, and information about employment. The centers also provide consultations on campus life. For more on matters the Student Centers handle, see the table at the bottom of this page.

Regardless of which school or graduate school a student belongs to, he/she can receive assistance at any of the Student Centers--Toyonaka, Suita, or Minoh.

Please feel free to visit any of the centers at your convenience and request assistance on a variety of matters.