Doctoral Course

Tuition comes to 535,800 JPY per year.

This doctoral course at Okayama University is taught in English in Okayama, Japan, running three years with an April start. Okayama University is a national comprehensive university in western Japan, established in 1870, with ten faculties, one program, seven graduate schools, and four research institutes serving a total student enrollment of about thirteen thousand, including 935 international students from 57 different countries. In 2007 the university launched the only UNESCO Chair in Asia for Education for Sustainable Development, and in 2017 it received the SDGs Partnership Award in the first Japan SDGs Awards from the Japanese government, recognition tied to its multi-stakeholder sustainability partnership with the Okayama region. A doctoral course within a comprehensive national university of this size offers candidates a choice among numerous graduate schools and research institutes, allowing research to be pursued across a broad range of fields depending on the graduate school and laboratory a candidate joins. Doctoral study generally centers on independent research toward a dissertation, with candidates working under a faculty supervisor, attending seminars, and publishing results as their research progresses across the three years of the program. The university's recognized sustainability work, including its UNESCO Chair and national SDGs award, means doctoral candidates in many fields may intersect with sustainability-related research questions or campus initiatives during their studies. With international students drawn from dozens of countries making up part of the student body, doctoral candidates join a research environment with meaningful international representation. Graduates of doctoral programs at a comprehensive university of this scale commonly move into academic and postdoctoral research positions, specialized research roles in industry, or work at research institutes, building on the multi-faculty, multi-institute research environment at Okayama University.