Program for the Practical Training and Engagement of Innovators

Program Contents

In this program, the Consortium prepares a practical training environment for young researchers (including doctoral students) who belong to member organizations of the Consortium, so that they can be independent innovators to reform local communities and the international society. In pursuit of this ultimate objective, the Consortium provides young researchers, in partnership with private sectors and local governments, the opportunity to involve themselves and contribute to the proposal of solutions to real-world problems within companies or society, through joint research or PBL-oriented* internships. These experiences will result in their transferrable skills to be maximized in various opportunities within real society. This is what we aim to achieve through the practical training and effective engagement of the young researchers in this Consortium.

*PBL: Problem Based Learning / Project Based Learning

The Key Initiatives under the Program are outlined below.

1. Development of the Young Researchers’ Project Planning and Research Skills

We will establish a joint platform to appropriately assess young researchers’ skills and improve/maximize their potentials in inter-disciplinary context. We will provide training courses for researchers to develop their transferable skills, which will make their presence outstanding in a wide variety of fields in society, along with other courses that will help them acquire practical research skills and allow them to complete effective research applications. Moreover, we ensure that all the relevant organizations on the HIRAKU platform cooperate with each other in utilizing human resources and other resources in a complementary and mutual manner.

2. Long-Term Internship Program (more than two months)

We aim to ensure that this long-term internship program provides young researchers with not only work experience, but also the opportunity to contribute and involve themselves in proposing solutions to real-world problems in actual corporates or in society, and ultimately to create innovation.

3. Platform for young researchers to find new opportunities for ‘seeds-needs’ matching

Utilizing the joint platform and other available resources, we aim to share information of young researchers, as well as research seeds-needs. In addition, we hold a wide variety of relevant events for the purposes of skill development, network building, and promotion of understanding, such as interactive workshops across the boundaries of academia and private sectors, as well as that of disciplinary/research areas, Consortium seminars, seeds presentation, and competitions of entrepreneurship and doctoral research.

4. Matchmaking Support

By maximizing the programs of our industry-government-academia consortium and joint platform, such as the long-term internship, the cross-appointment system, joint research and job search assistance, we strive to develop the overall potential of young researchers.