April 2021
Mitsuyoshi Takiguchi
Dean, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Beginning of a New Education and Research Organization: Faculty Organization Leading Global Research in Veterinary Science
In April 2017, the former Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine was reorganized into the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, a research organization to which faculty members belong, and the Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine and the Graduate School of Infectious Diseases, which are educational organizations. It was the third major reorganization following the establishment of the School of Veterinary Medicine in 1952 and the improvement of graduate school education in 1995. Looking from the outside, it may be difficult to understand this reorganization. Its aim is to flexibly build an educational organization that promotes research and human resource development to meet the needs of the times and society.
The teaching staff belonging to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine are involved in education at the Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine and the Graduate School of Infectious Diseases. At the Graduate School of Infectious Diseases, members of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine who specialize in infectious disease research and teaching staff of the Research Center for Zoonosis Control and the Faculty of Medicine collaborate to provide graduate education focused on infectious diseases. The reorganized Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine is an organization that takes over education provided by the former Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine. The aforementioned two graduate schools that were launched in academic 2017 further develop the graduate education program created in Fostering Global Leaders in Veterinary Science toward Contributing to "One Health" (academic 2011 - 2017), a Program for Leading Graduate Schools adopted in 2011, to produce PhD graduates with practical applied skills, problem-solving abilities and the capacity to see the whole picture from a higher point of view, who can contribute to the development of global veterinary science and the control of infectious diseases. For details of education at both graduate schools, please see their websites. At the School of Veterinary Medicine, education is provided by teaching staff of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. For details of undergraduate education, please see the school's website.
The Faculty of Veterinary Medicine retains a passion/aspiration for academic research that originates in research on chemical carcinogenesis, which was discovered 100 years ago by Dr. Koichi Ichikawa and Professor Katsusaburo Yamagiwa, who were candidates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1926. In the zoonosis field, one of the specialties at Hokkaido University, world-leading research is promoted, including global-scale etiology/epidemiology research, analysis of host-parasite interaction and the development of diagnostic and treatment methods. Advanced veterinary research is conducted at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, which boasts the most advanced facilities and largest scale in Asia. Fieldwork is the faculty's forte, and research on environmental toxicity and wildlife/ecosystem conservation is also conducted on a global scale. Moreover, the faculty contributes to the clarification of new life phenomena and the development of pharmaceutical products through research on life science using its characteristic approach of examining living organisms from the perspective of veterinary science. It is our great pleasure that we can promote these diverse research activities together with excellent graduate students from Japan and a dozen other countries.
At the start of this new organization as the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, we intend to play an active role as the front runner of veterinary research by promoting basic research as intellectual creation based on unhindered thinking, technological development, applied research and development aimed at the resolution of social issues, and social contribution through the social implementation of research achievements. We also intend to focus on education research to produce veterinarian scientists in the next generation. Further support and guidance from those concerned will be greatly appreciated.