Japan Association of Higher Education Research 日本高等教育学会

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Purpose of the establishment of the Japan Association of Higher Education Research

Today, higher education, in which universities play a major role, has entered an age of structural change around the world. We have seen activities aimed at tackling practical and policy-related challenges as well as growing interest in interdisciplinary research.

In Japan, a series of reforms and structural changes have led to a greater recognition of the necessity and importance of higher education research, and a movement toward the development of education and research systems has begun to gain momentum, as seen in the successive establishment of centers for university research and practice/management, as well as the establishment of training programs in graduate schools for researchers and specialists in areas relating to higher education.

The field of higher education research extends to the social sciences, humanities, and even natural sciences given the nature of its subject, which is a very complex system and presents a diversity of issues. This has hindered the establishment of an independent academic society in the past. However, considering the importance of the issues concerning higher education and researches on this subject, which has become more obvious in this changing era, the establishment of an academic society is becoming an ever more critical issue for promoting cooperation and exchanges among researchers from different study fields, strengthening the theoretical and methodological basis of researches, seeking a further deepening and development of researches, dissemination of the outcomes of these researches and contributions to the solution of practical and policy-related challenges.

Based on this recognition of the situation, we have gathered to establish the Japan Association of Higher Education Research as founders (the circle indicates the representative of the Association).