P12 - Recruiting international faculty in Osaka University, Japan: the issue of required knowledge

Kyoko Ito, Specially Appointed Associate Professor/Research Manager, Osaka University

This poster addresses the issue of recruiting international faculty in Osaka University, Japan. Osaka University is one of the largest national university in Japan. The university aims at developing world top-class research and education, and has been attaching more and more importance to recruiting faculty internationally. However, recruitment information is not always presented in English. We analyzed 403 job openings (April of 2016 to July of 2017) by Osaka University to uncover what skills and qualifications are required. As for language skills, we found that some of the faculty positions expect applicants to understand Japanese culture and have native-level Japanese proficiency. Other positions welcome applicants of all cultural backgrounds and have no strict requirements on Japanese proficiency. The results of analysis are also interpreted from the perspective of transferable skills using the Vitae researcher development framework. This study proposes a multi-layer model of researcher elements for the faculties in Osaka University. It sheds light on faculty career development as well as university development.