Moreover, the Graduate School makes an effort to cultivate the sense of being part of an international community among its graduate students and young researchers by actively encouraging them to attend special lectures given by guest professors from overseas.
Research by graduates tends to be pursued in the student's exclusive study field and conducted under the guidance of lectures. In addition, however, joint research with researchers who are not involved in lecturing is strongly encouraged. The core research facility is the Dental Research Center, where highly educated and technically skilled researchers who possess specialized knowledge engage in a variety of technically complex joint projects that would be impossible for a single researcher to complete alone. To this purpose, this center is sub-divided into nine divisions, namely: Biomaterials Science, Functional Morphology, Stomatognathic Function, Advanced Dental Treatment, Systemic Biology and Oncology, Clinical Research, and Dental Education.
Through their membership of one of these divisions, researchers are given the chance to apply for funding for joint research carried out in cooperation with other researchers within and outside of their own division. Furthermore, as a venue for joint research, the Graduate School runs a Collaboration Center, which is a facility equipped for work using radioactive isotopes and large-scale equipment. Many researchers are active users of this center.
The Graduate School also has two research funds to provide graduate researchers with funding. These are the Sato Fund, established and developed by the School's founder Professor Kazuo Sato, and the Uemura Fund, which was established using a donation from Dr. Yasuo Uemura, a former graduate of the Graduate School. In accordance with their founders' wishes, the Sato Fund is used for cultivating young researchers, while the Uemura Fund is used to provide research grants for conducting joint research. Both of these funds play important roles in promoting research activity.
In addition to administering the above funds, the Graduate School energetically encourages its students to obtain research funding from outside the University, beginning with government subsidies in aid of scientific researchers and research grants from the Science Frontier Promotion Project. In particular, in the case of research grants for graduate students, the School submits research plans to the Ministry of Education's Graduate Priority Special Expense Department and assigns funds for this purpose. Also, in an effort to cultivate young researchers who will be able to carry the Graduate School forward into the future, we provide support for our young researchers and graduate students from the Sato Fund for the purpose of making available a wide range of opportunities for overseas study, research publication, etc.
Moreover, the Graduate School encourages international joint research, and to this end research grants are distributed in advance. In the past, this policy has resulted in top quality, world-class research results, not only in dentistry and in closely related fields, but also in a host of medical science subjects including basic research using genetic engineering techniques and research contributing to progress in the psychological sciences, etc.
As the above policies show, the goal of fixing our eyes firmly on the future which the Graduate School has been pursuing ever since its establishment continues to be our strategy in the current era of internationalized education and research.