The Tottori area of Tottori University had the Graduate School of Regional Sciences (master’s program), the Graduate School of Engineering (first semester of the doctoral program), and the Graduate School of Agriculture (master’s program). These were established to foster research competencies in each field of study or the advanced capabilities required for specialized jobs.

However, under such a system, students had a tendency to focus solely on and be biased toward specialized research and relevant studies in individual fields, and rarely offered opportunities to consider the social significance of the research nor to develop a bird’s-eye view and a comprehensive way of thinking, which would be required after graduate students went out into the world. Today, postgraduates must have a high level of expertise and the ability to think in broad and comprehensive terms from a higher perspective beyond their academic fields.

In response to these social demands, our aim is to nurture human resources who can contribute to a sustainable society where human beings can live in harmony with the environment; therefore, we integrated three graduate schools into one and established the Graduate School of Sustainability Science in April 2017.

This Graduate School consists of four majors with the educational objective to train highly skilled professionals who have advanced knowledge and practical skills in their specialized fields, who can acquire comprehensive thinking skills based on broad knowledge related to the creation of a sustainable society beyond their specialized fields, and who can contribute to the creation of innovation to construct a sustainable society on a variety of occasions for both Japanese and international societies. Toward this goal, we are working to consistently provide guidance for the latest research by conducting regular research achievement reviews of faculty members to ensure quality improvement in the research by postgraduate students.

We hope that the postgraduate students in our Graduate School of Sustainability Science will hold high ideals and aim to improve the skills to carry out the research that will lead to the discovery of solutions to issues as highly skilled professionals who can contribute to the creation of a sustainable society.