The University of Tsukuba Research Administration/Management Office provides strong support for enhancing research capabilities and improving the research environment at the University of Tsukuba by building bridges between headquarters and departments.
We offer a variety of support menus and events for our researchers, who are the front-runners in their various fields. If there is anything you are interested in, please feel free to contact us and make use of our support.

What kind of career have you passed through so far?

Paving the way for research support while pursuing my research

My background is in economic history, and I was researching on Informatics and Economics from a historical perspective.
It took me seven years to complete my doctorate in economics while working as a part-time lecturer at universities and high schools. After receiving my doctorate, I started working as a URA at my university, but the position was tenured.
At that time, URAs were in their germination stage, and it was still rare to find a URA position like the one at the University of Tsukuba, where you could be assigned to a position without a tenure limit if you worked diligently.

I was fortunate enough to be able to change jobs at the University of Tsukuba. When I started working at the University of Tsukuba, most of the URAs were in the science field, and I remember that doctorates in the humanities and social sciences were quite rare.

What are important things/values/significance/ in your work?

Being aware of backup support for research

In my various duties, such as analyzing the university's research capabilities, planning and managing internal recruitment, and strengthening external public relations for research, I always aim to create an environment in which researchers can concentrate on their research.

I work with the awareness that what URA does is not to support research itself, but to provide backup support for research.

What are your future goals and prospects?

Challenging to show the world the results finding in humanities and social sciences.

As a URA with a background in humanities and social sciences, my goal is to develop the results of Japan's humanities and social sciences research and its presence in the world. To achieve this goal, I have been working on iMD™ and the promotion of open science.

iMD™ (index for Measuring Diversity) is an index developed by the University of Tsukuba to quantitatively evaluate all academic journals regardless of language or country.
When researchers in the humanities and social sciences publish their research results, the language used is usually Japanese, which makes it difficult to evaluate them on an international scale. In response to this problem, I asked for the cooperation of humanities and social sciences researchers and URAs at the University of Tsukuba and other universities, and spent several years developing this system from its conception, and am currently applying for a patent.

Although it was a modest project, it was funded by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, and it turned out to be a very exciting and rewarding project for me. I am proud of the results of the collaboration between researchers and URAs with humanities and social sciences backgrounds.

I have also been working on Japan Institutional Gateway.
This is one of the several gateways that exist that are tied to the F1000Research platform.
Once the authors clear the requirements of the paper guidelines, the submitted paper will be published on the web and the peer review process will begin sincerely. Papers can be submitted in English or Japanese, and anyone in the world can subscribe for free.
Research results in the humanities and social sciences are considered difficult to observe, but I believe that if we can increase access to knowledge in the humanities and social sciences through open science, it will lead to the realization of a more affluent society.

researchmap: https://researchmap.jp/read0133993
J-GLOBAL: https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=200901015619155993
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3663-9001