Kyoto University: Institution Main

About Kyoto University:

Kyoto University  (京都大学 Kyōto daigaku or 京大 Kyōdai) dates back to the Chemistry School (舎密局 Seimikyoku), which was founded in Osaka in 1869.  The school taught chemistry as well as physics.  In 1886 the Third Higher School (第三髙等學校 daisan kōtō gakkō) was established in place of the Seimikyoku, and in the same year the school was relocated to Kyoto.

In 1897, Kyoto Imperial University (京都帝國大學) was established as the 2nd Imperial University using the Third Higher School's buildings. The higher school moved to where the Yoshida South Campus is today. In the same year, the College of Science and Technology was founded. The Colleges of Law and Medicine were both founded in 1899, and the College of Letters in 1906, expanding the university's activities to areas outside the natural sciences.

After World War II, the current Kyoto University was established by merging the Imperial University and the Third Higher School, which assumed the duty of teaching liberal arts as the Faculty of Liberal Arts (教養部 Kyōyōbu).   The faculty was dissolved with the foundation of the Faculty of Integrated Human Studies (総合人間学部 Sōgō ningen gakubu) in 1992. 

Kyodai is ranked as the 2nd best research university in Japan according to Thomson Reuters. The university is top ranked in Chemistry (1st in Japan, 4th in the world), Biology and Biochemistry (2nd in Japan, 23rd in the world), Pharmacology and Toxicology (2nd in Japan, 30 in the world), Immunology (3rd in Japan, 25th in the world), Material Science (4th in Japan, 22nd in the world), and Physics (4th in Japan, 25th in the world).

In addition, the university also has excellent research facilities in the Social Sciences and Humanities.   In Jan 2011, Repec, Research Papers in Economics, ranked their Institute of Economic Research as Japan's 3rd best economic research institution.

The University's Department of Geophysics and their Disaster Prevention Research Institute are both represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction.

The university currently has about 10 faculties and 19 graduate programs. The university has 3 campuses in Yoshida, Uji and Katsura.

Kyoto University was designed as one of Japan's Global 30 institutions.