Research Institute for Humanity and Nature: Features of RIHN

CCPC (Center for Cooperation, Promotion and Communication)

Message from the Director-General |

Founding Mission and Goals |

Features of RIHN |

Medium-term Goals and Plans |

Organization |

Communication of Research Results |

Facilities |

Promotional Video

Integration

Integration entails the assimilation of multiple knowledge traditions - those stretching back millennia as well as those of the contemporary natural and human sciences - into a single framework. In contemporary terms, the challenge is not just to link knowledge of complex natural processes with that of the lifestyle and culture of different regional communities, but to build holistic knowledge frameworks that allow for qualitative leaps in the human ability to solve environmental problems. RIHN is developing the transdisciplinary field of Environmental Humanics of the Earth System, to describe this merging of cognitive and design sciences.

International Networking

RIHN research projects are based on networks of Japanese and international scholars and research institutions. At both the project and institute level, RIHN establishes complementary partnerships in order to conduct fieldwork, address local problems, organize symposia, or to focus or strengthen academic communication within specific research fields. Our home research community is also enriched by the presence of many foreign visiting professors and researchers.

Leadership

Each research project is housed within one of five research domains, which is overseen by a director who is responsible for describing the domain's key theoretical, empirical and methodological components, and for encouraging synergies between individual projects. As RIHN now enters its second term, a new Core Research Hub has been established in the Center for Coordination, Promotion and Communication. Its role is to focus discussion between the Director-General, Deputy-Director Generals and Domain Directors on RIHN's long term research trajectory, to strengthen synergies between the five domains, and so to establish RIHN as a center in global environmental studies.

Fluidity

At RIHN, professors, associate professors, and assistant professors work through fixed-term appointments, as do project researchers and administrative staff involved in project and institute support. This structure is unique within Japan, and it encourages personal and intellectual exchange with individuals and partner institutes in Japan and abroad. In addition, the phased flow of project research, from Incubation Study (IS) to Full Research (FR), allows for the flexible guidance and evolution of each project.

RIHN within the National Institutes for the Humanities

The National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU) was established on 1 April 2004. RIHN joined the National Museum of Japanese History, the National Institute of Japanese Literature, the International Research Center for Japanese Studies and the National Museum of Ethnology as a member institute. RIHN shares resources and contributes to joint research with other NIHU institutes, and collaborates in staging public lectures and symposia and other activities designed to generate broad public interest in intersections between the humanities and the environment.

RIHN coordinates two NIHU endeavors on topics of great regional and global significance: Water in Asia, and environmental transformation in China. RIHN is the core institution in the Integrated Study of Water and People in Humid Asia research network, and published themed issues of the journal Water and People for a specialist audience. Under the NIHU Center for the Promotion of Area Studies, RIHN established the Research Initiative for Chinese Environmental Issues, the RIHN-China Newsletter (published in Japanese and Chinese), and the Symposium Series on Chinese Environmental Issues, which organizes symposia in both Japan and China. Such works have established RIHN as a central node in the network of scholars concerned with environmental transformation in China.

The international symposium on "Development and Environment, Livelihood, and Health in Southwestern China” was held at Yunnan University on November 2, 2010.