HOME > About HSRC

Change from Academic Frontier Research Project to
Open Research Center Development Project

Open Research Center development project construction of Human Services Science-Human Environment Research for Human Services selected by the Ministry of Education for 2005, aims to create a 5 year project of “Science of Human Services” for maximizing the potential of each human being .

The organization running this project was then renamed as the “Human Services Research Center” (HSRC) and set up inside the Ritsumeikan University Human Institute of Human Science. With this as the main engine, Ritsumeikan University will be established as a human, physical, and informational regional resource, with concerned organizations, providers of aid services and aid specialists developed into an organic alliance and will construct new mechanisms for cultivating and training human resources.
This project follows the “Human Environment Design for Human Services” Academic Frontier Promotion Project that was carried out until 2004. In the Academic Frontier Project was carried out research and practice within a single spectrum of human services operations towards restructuring of the environment applied to the field clinics in education, welfare, etc. from the unified viewpoint of reducing the danger of communication with the social climate while superimposing research examples of concrete and direct aid. Over the course of 5 years, 166 papers and 65 books were produced, and there were produced many papers and books that grapple with a new framework of “Human Services” that exceeds the classification of the original discipline. If aid is necessary, then practical work of newly building regional support systems for the disabled, the elderly and children, or advocative work of constructing systems or larger policy proposals are performed, and the results of that shall lead to substantial returns to society such as the materialization of aid policies or the realization of services established in a region. Also, as a unique informational societal return of this project, a specialized “Human Service Platform” web site was administered, and simultaneously with the immediate release of the contents and results of research projects to the public, they created original human services resources employing the site, and gave assistance to practitioners through a practical research database.

Human Services Research Center established

 We are trying to plan the qualitative development of further research and practice regarding human services in the accumulation aforementioned research and practical knowledge developed in the new Human Services Research Center (HSRC), and the human networks born out of that. With that direction, we are able to take up the pursuit of new university functions in alliances with foreign researchers and organizations, and further organic alliances with universities and graduate schools and as a regional resource appropriate described as open.
Our plans regarding overseas alliances are to aggressively promote alliances and information exchange with various Asian countries, and to promote cooperative research and international practices. At first, we are publishing the shape of Human Services research and practice, as well as suggestions for those projects solicited from both overseas and domestic researchers and practitioners, on a special site within the Four at the Corner site. (Through the support of the ““2005 Ritsumeikan University New Area Development Research Center New Frontiers Development Program.”) As an organic alliance with universities and graduate schools, we would like for this program to not stop only with the preexisting internship style arrangements of university students going to help out with human services on location, but to also try and implement a new practical (experimental) attitude of students more aggressively entering into university education with a style of discovering functional ways of giving human services. In this manner, we will newly examine the whole idea of a university as a regional resource, and through this a new path for constructing a “Science of Human Services” as a new discipline will become visible.
As for HSRC projects, they are at present proceeding as on this site, but we are always accepting proposals for new ideas. We hope to hear your thoughts and opinions.