Kyoto University


Kyoto University, or Kyodai is a national university in Kyoto, Japan. It is the second oldest Japanese university, one of Asia's highest ranked universities and one of Japan's National Seven Universities. One of Asia's leading research-oriented institutions, Kyoto University is famed for producing world-class researchers, including 19 Nobel Prize laureates, 2 Fields medalists and one Gauss Prize winner. It has the most Nobel laureates of all universities in Asia.

History

Kyoto University's forerunner was the Chemistry School founded in Osaka in 1869, which, despite its name, taught physics as well. Later, the Third Higher School, was established in the place of Seimi-kyoku in 1886, it then transferred to the university's present main campus in the same year.
Kyoto Imperial University as a part of the Imperial University system was established on June 18, 1897, using the Third Higher School's buildings. The higher school moved to a patch of land across the street, where the Yoshida South Campus stands today, and was integrated into Kyoto University in May 1949 and became the College of Liberal Arts in September 1949. In the same year of the university's establishment, the College of Science and Technology was founded. The College of Law and the College of Medicine were founded in 1899, the College of Letters in 1906, expanding the university's activities to areas outside natural science.
After World War II, the current Kyoto University was established by merging the imperial university and the Third Level School, which assumed the duty of teaching liberal arts as the Faculty of Liberal Arts. The faculty was dissolved with the foundation of the Faculty of Integrated Human Studies in 1992.
Kyoto University has since 2004 been incorporated as a national university corporation under a new law which applies to all national universities.
Despite the incorporation which has led to increased financial independence and autonomy, Kyoto University is still partly controlled by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
The University's Department of Geophysics and their Disaster Prevention Research Institute are represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction.

Campuses

The university has three campuses in Yoshida, Kyoto; in Katsura, Kyoto; in Gokashō, Uji
Yoshida Campus is the main campus, with some laboratories located in Uji. The Graduate School of Engineering is currently under process of moving to the newly built Katsura Campus.

Organization

The university has about 22,000 students enrolled in its undergraduate and graduate programs.

Faculties

Kyoto University promotes itself as an academic institution fostering a "spirit of freedom." The university claims eleven Nobel Laureates and two Fields Medalists among its faculty and alumni. The university is also known as the starting point for the Kyoto School philosophical movement.

Notable research institutes and facilities

Kyodai is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan. It can be seen in the several rankings such as shown below. The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked the Kyoto University as follows:
YearJapanAsiaWorld
20152nd2nd26th
20142nd2nd26th
20132nd2nd26th
20122nd2nd26th
20112nd2nd27th
20102nd2nd24th
20092nd2nd24th
20082nd2nd23rd

The Times Higher Education ranked the Kyoto University as follows:
YearJapanAsiaWorld
2015-20162nd9th88th
2014-20152nd9th59th
2013-20142nd7th52nd
2012-20132nd7th54th
2011-20122nd5th52nd
2010-20112nd8th57th

The QS World University Rankings ranked the Kyoto University as follows:
YearJapanAsiaWorld
2015/163rd14th38th
2014/152nd12th36th
20132nd10th35th
20122nd10th35th
20112nd7th32nd
20102nd8th23rd
20092nd5th25th
20082nd3rd25th

The URAP ranked the Kyoto University as follows:

General rankings

The university was ranked 3rd in 2008 and 2010 in the ranking "Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai. In another ranking, Japanese prep school :ja:河合塾|Kawaijuku ranked Kyodai as the 2nd best university in Japan.
Kyodai is also one of the top universities in the world. The following rankings are the example of Kyodai's ranking positions in the world rankings.
Kyodai is usually considered as one of the top research institution in Japan. In fact, the 2nd largest amount of investment from :ja:科学研究費補助金|Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, which is the national grants program for research institutions.
This financial support from the Japanese government has a direct effect on Kyodai's research outcomes. According to Thomson Reuters, Kyodai is the 1st best research university in Japan. Its research excellence is especially distinctive in Chemistry, Biology & Biochemistry, Pharmacology & Toxicology, Immunology, Material Science, and Physics.
In another ranking, Nikkei Shimbun on 2004/2/16 surveyed about the research standards in Engineering studies based on Thomson Reuters, :ja:科学研究費補助金|Grants in Aid for Scientific Research and questionnaires to the heads of 93 leading Japanese Research Centers. Kyodai was placed in the 10th position in this ranking.
Kyodai also has a high research standard in Social Sciences & Humanities. Repec in January 2011 ranked Kyodai's Institute of Economic Research as Japan's 3rd best economic research institution. Kyodai has provided 6 presidents of the Japanese Economic Association in its 42-year history, which is the 3rd largest number.
Asahi Shimbun summarized the amount of academic papers in Japanese major legal journals by university, and Kyodai was ranked 6th for the period between 2005 and 2009.

Graduate school rankings

Kyodai Law School is considered as one of the top Law schools in Japan, being ranked 4th in terms of the number of successful candidates of Japanese Bar Examination in 2009 and 2010.
Eduniversal ranked Japanese business schools, and the Faculty of Economics in Kyodai is placed 4th in Japan.

Alumni rankings

Kyodai alumni are distinctively successful in Japanese industries such as shown below.
According to the :ja:エコノミスト |Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Kyodai have the 10th best employment rate in 400 major companies in Japan. However, it has to be noted that this lower ranking position is because of the large number of alumni who become government bureaucrats, which is 2nd largest among Japanese universities. In fact, alumni of Kyodai's average salary is the 5th best in Japan, according to the :ja:プレジデント社|PRESIDENT.
ranks Kyodai as 5th in the world in 2011 in terms of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies.

Popularity and selectivity

Kyodai is one of the most selective universities in Japan. Its entrance difficulty is usually considered as one of the top among 180 national and public universities.

Athletics

Kyoto University competes in 48 sports. The university is a member of the Kansai Big Six Baseball League.

Controversy

Members of the university's American football team, the Kyoto University Gangsters, were arrested in 2006 for gang rape, which had been recently added to the Penal Code in January 2005 following the Super Free rape controversy. The three students had forced a female university student to drink liquor to the point of unconsciousness, at which point they gang-raped her. They were all convicted.

Notable people

Eleven alumni or faculty of Kyoto University have received the Nobel Prize:
Two alumni of Kyoto University have received the Fields Medal: Heisuke Hironaka - mathematician, Fields Medalists in 1970. Shigefumi Mori - mathematician, Fields Medalists in 1990.
One Kyoto University professor emeritus has received the Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize: Kiyosi Itô - mathematician, winner in 2006 for his works on probability theory.
The lecturer against vaccine conspiracies received the John Maddox Prize: Riko Muranaka, winner in 2017 for her combat of anti-HPV vaccination.