We’re living in times of transition, surfing the waves of change that will destroy rigid social structures in Japan and the world. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation and highly advanced generative AI technology swept the globe in late 2022, digitization will continue to bring significant changes to our society.
Will we fear change or see it as a chance for new possibilities? Fear of change is a natural human response, but it could end up stunting our growth.

Many people and companies are not sure how they should respond to change. What should we do in order to live tenaciously and beautifully, just as flowers bloom after a storm?
In such a setting, Osaka University has boldly embarked on a new endeavor with corporate partners.
We heard that they are nurturing high-level personnel capable of developing innovation when urged to change. To learn more about it, we interviewed Senior Executive Vice President TANAKA Toshihiro, in charge of education at the university.

Reskilling/recurrent education increases labor productivity. But why isn’t it widespread in Japan?

In Japan, continuous learning, such as lifelong education and recurrent education, has been advocated. Although the ratio of adult learners who receive recurrent education at educational institutions is below the OECD average¹, the Government Financial Report for 2021 issued by the Cabinet Office reports that the number of people who advanced to graduate schools is on the rise and the ratio of adult learners to total number of graduate students as a whole is increasing for both men and women. However, it has also been pointed out that the amount of support for adult learners from companies and the government has stagnated for the last few years.

Research shows that receiving work-related recurrent education, including in-house training, correlates with increased labor productivity². For Japan, which is eager to increase productivity, reskilling could be just the thing.

So then, what prevents reskilling and in-house skills development from being conducted in Japan?

According to the Basic Survey of Human Resources Development by the Ministry of Health³, Labour and Welfare, companies and workers listed the following reasons. Answers from companies included “A shortage of trainers,” “Lack of time for human resources development,” and “Employees often quit after receiving in-house training,” with all three of these factors appearing in over 40% of responses. Both full- and part-time employees mentioned that “My work is so busy that I have no free time for self-development,” while part-time employees also mentioned that “I am so busy with housework and childrearing that I have no free time for self-development.” Other responses included “It costs too much,” “I don’t know what I should be doing” and “Results of self-development are not recognized within the company.”

Society, as a whole, needs to create environments that make it easy to learn and allow that learning to be utilized.

Osaka University has long engaged in the reskilling of adult learners. For instance, the university has offered evening/weekend courses in nanoscience for more than 10 years so that adult learners can easily attend evening classes on weekdays and intensive classes and practical training on weekends. To date, 1,500 students from more than 200 companies have already completed these courses⁴.

To suggest that OU engages in the reskilling of adult learners, I added “For instance” at the beginning of the sentence.

Shimadzu and Osaka University Team Up for New Development in Reskilling/Recurrent Education

After the COVID-19 pandemic, an ambidextrous approach, or exploring new opportunities while maintaining existing operations, has been more frequently advocated. Regarding the efficacy of people who receive reskilling/recurrent education, Dr. Tanaka said, “In a drastically changing society, even big companies cannot manage to stay afloat with their existing business alone, so they need a new axis for their business exploits.” “When shifting to the next stage, companies need personnel who can lead new businesses with knowledge of new technology and new worksites. To this end, external recruitment or corporate acquisition may be possible, but for smoothly connecting existing core business operations with new businesses, it would be ideal for a person in the existing business to play that role.”

“For example, individuals who have specialized knowledge at the graduate level in a field different from the existing business could utilize it to lead a new business. Diversity in human resources raises organizational resilience to change. What we are asked to offer is reskilling/recurrent education to produce people who can develop and lead innovation. Surely this is our work,” he emphasized.

As a matter of fact, Osaka University has already engaged in the REACH Laboratory Project at the Osaka University Shimadzu Omics Innovation Research Laboratories since 2021.
REACH = Recurrent & Re-skilling Academia and Industry Collaboration for Higher Education

Dr. Tanaka said, “Shimadzu produces unparalleled, advanced analytical instruments. Their employees enrolled in the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences now engage in the analysis of oligonucleotide therapeutics. Since the presence of impurities, even in small quantities, can influence the safety of drugs, analysis of drugs is essential. But the world of life science is different from those of physics or chemistry, so analysis dedicated to life science is necessary. Shimadzu attempts to explore new business opportunities by sending its employees to fields different from those in which the company already excels.”

He continued: “These employees are in their 20s and 30s. Shimadzu holds a view that in one to two decades, they will become managers and head the company, serving as appraisers to evaluate new branches. Shimadzu strives toward its goal of high-level personnel development, one that it shares with us at Osaka University.”

Providing new doctoral students with a secure learning environment

On April 21, 2023, Osaka University and Shimadzu Corporation held a press conference to announce a new agreement that they had signed on March 20. Based on the industry-university co-creation conducted at the above-mentioned Research Alliance Laboratories, both parties will also engage in developing the REACH Laboratory Project into a new project. While this new agreement is the same in that Shimadzu employees will study in a doctoral course at OU, what is different is that students who finish their master’s degree at OU will enter Shimadzu and immediately continue their research in a doctoral course at OU as Shimadzu employees.

This epoch-making effort also contributes to the development of highly skilled professionals, a big challenge for Japan. When compared to other major countries in the world, the number of doctorate recipients in Japan is on the decline⁵. Although the inventive productivity of workers with a doctoral degree after joining a company is high, doctoral employment outside universities has not increased. Ministries and government offices have taken various measures to increase the employment of doctorate holders for many years⁶.

The percentage of those who pursued a doctorate after receiving their master’s degree decreased from 16.7% in 2000 to 9.7% in 2021, with many giving up pursuing a doctorate due to financial reasons and concerns about their postdoctoral career paths⁷.

The most notable point of the new agreement is that it ensures students’ financial stability during and after their doctoral course and provides an environment in which they can continue to study without financial worries and psychological distress.

As for the reasons why students who completed their master’s course can stay at the university as Shimadzu employees, Dr. Tanaka said, “Normally, one can’t stay at the university after graduation, but fortunately, we have Osaka University Shimadzu Omics Innovation Research Laboratories to accept graduates, so they can continue their research here.”

He continued: “There are some government scholarship programs to support doctoral students, but under this new agreement, students, as employees, receive not scholarships, but salaries. Since compensation includes employee benefits, this will provide well-rounded financial support. In scholarship programs, no special treatment to reward performance is given to recipients, even if they produce good results through their research.”

“On the other hand, when it comes to salaries, workers may receive better treatment depending on their efforts. So, this agreement, which is advantageous for both the company and doctoral course students, supports these students without using money from the government, money which can then be used to support other students. It’s a great system. This is possible because OU has the Research Alliance Laboratories on campus. The new system brings positive effects to the corporation, students, and the university.”

A Passport for Learning in the Age of the Centenarian

Osaka University has embarked on creating a kind of “learning passport in the age of the centenarian” so that OU students can start reskilling/recurrent education at any time and the university can offer student-centered education. It is a system called “Student Life-Cycle Support,” or “SLiCS,” which will utilize and analyze information about learners as big data, so when they are thinking of taking reskilling/recurrent education after graduation, SLiCS will provide them with optimized learning support and feedback. We’ll skip over the details of the system, but as for its purpose, Dr. Tanaka said, “Learning helps you, so we’d like to build a system for lifelong learning for OU students.”

It is said that higher education in Japan faces challenges, such as shifting from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning in university education, promoting digital transformation in education using ICT (information and communication technology), big data, and AI (artificial intelligence), and visualizing the results of university education.

Dr. Tanaka believes that SLiCS will help to address these problems, saying, “SLiCS will certify the educational background of OU graduates. Furthermore, when they create their own career paths, or when they want to give them added value in the face of a world-changing event such as the COVID-19 pandemic, SLiCS will help them decide which field they should develop.” He also showed his love for students as a teacher: “With this system, OU can support its students even after graduation so that they can have better lives.”

Reskilling/Recurrent Education at Osaka University Creates New Value

The reskilling/recurrent education at OU is not limited to allowing students to acquire cutting-edge techniques and knowledge. Dr. Tanaka expressed his hope: “I particularly hope that middle managers, who serve as a liaison between top management and workers, participate in reskilling/recurrent education.”

“To be honest,” he continued, “I also hope that top managers will have opportunities for reskilling/recurrent education, but I think they are too busy to do so. That’s why I want them to send middle managers who will take on management responsibilities in the near future so that they can experience the efficacy of reskilling/recurrent education. Middle managers who acquire new expertise will be active after returning to their company, but more than anything, they will surely have realized how significant reskilling/recurrent education is.”
“In that case, when these middle managers are tasked with a new project, they may be able to connect front-line workers who acquired new skills through reskilling/recurrent education with company management or make a proposal for what reskilling education is needed.”
I think Dr. Tanaka’s explanation is too long to fit in one paragraph, so I added “he continued,” in the beginning.

Dr. Tanaka also spoke about the positive effects on Japanese society generated by increased doctoral personnel. “An increase in doctoral personnel creates diversity, namely quality diversity. If attribute diversity and quality diversity are combined and nurtured, it will become a source of innovation. Reskilling/recurrent education at OU will develop the utilization of doctoral personnel as organizational culture, which will create new value. If they train their middle managers through reskilling/recurrent education now, it will strengthen the organization in the future.”

Investing in people and preparing for change to create innovation: reskilling/recurrent education could be the answer.

Sources (links in Japanese)

1. Figure 2-2-12, Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finance for 2018 Issued by Cabinet Office ↩︎
2. Chapter 2, Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finance for 2018 Issued by Cabinet Office ↩︎
3. Figures 82 and 83, Basic Survey of Human Resources Development issued by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare ↩︎
4. R³ Institute for Newly-Emerging Science Design, Osaka University ↩︎
5. Figure 3-4-4, Japanese Science and Technology Indicators 2020, National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology ↩︎
6. Careers for Doctoral Students (objectives and outline), Cabinet Office (link in Japanese) ↩︎
7. (Abstract) The 2021 Survey of Japan Master’s Human Resource Profiling (JM-Pro) 1st Policy-Oriented Research Group, National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, MEXT ↩︎