Perspective of Graduate School in Maritime Universities

摘要

The big progress of science and technology and the economical conditions in shipping industry have been giving the innovative changes in the ship operation such as computer-based navigation or mixed crew system. So far there are many discussions and papers in maritime countries about how to maintain and activate their own maritime society mainly from the viewpoint of international transportation capability at national crisis or to keep employment of seafarers at each country. The author is convinced the education and research in any society fulfills one of the most important rolls to achieve the goal of each society. So, at first, author describes the present of Kobe University of Mercantile Marine and what the challenging reforms undergoing there. Then author mainly discusses the perspectives of graduate school in maritime universities under these situations introducing the re-structuring processes of graduate school through the integration of Kobe University of Mercantile Marine and Kobe University focusing on future research and education. Graduate School of Maritime Science will be installed in Graduate School of Science and Technology of KU. The purpose of Graduate School is to cover the wide range of science and technology field, to interact with other academic fields thereby to develop advanced, interdisciplinary research with synthetic nature. We, the humans, have utilized the ocean and benefited from its vast resources for our life. However, we now have to give precedence to the protection of ocean environment in our activities. This has become a human responsibility and therefore needs to be addressed not only through the technology we utilized to protect the ocean, but also through the social systems and measures we dispense to meet the social demand.