Osaka University

The Toyonaka campus is home to faculties of Letters, Law, Economics, Science, and Engineering Science. It is also the academic base for Graduate Schools of International Public Policy, Language and Culture, a portion of Information Science, and the Center for the Practice of Legal and Political Expertise. All undergraduates attend classes on the Toyonaka campus during their first year of enrollment. Sports activities are primarily concentrated on the Toyonaka campus, with the exception of tennis, which is located in Suita.

The Suita campus houses faculties of Human Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Engineering. It contains the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences and a portion of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. The campus is also home to the Osaka University Hospital and the Nationwide Joint Institute of Cybermedia Center and Research Center for Nuclear Physics.

The Minoh campus was incorporated following the merger with the Osaka University of Foreign Studies in October 2007. The Minoh campus is home to the School of Foreign Studies, the Research Institute for World Languages, and the Center for Japanese Language and Culture.

In addition to these three campuses, the former Nakanoshima campus, the university's earliest campus located in downtown Osaka, served as the hub for the faculty of medicine until the transfer to the Suita campus was completed in 1993.[8] In April 2004, the Nakanoshima campus became the university's Nakanoshima Center, serving as a venue for information exchange, adult education classes, and activities involving academic as well as non-academic communities.

Osaka University's School of Human Sciences on the Suita Campus hosts an English-medium four-year undergraduate degree program.[13] The program started in 2011 as a result of the national government's G30 (Global 30) Project. Although the government ended the G30 Project in 2014[14] and replaced it with the Top Global University Project, the Human Sciences International Undergraduate Program at Osaka University continues.

Areas of study include sociology, anthropology, philosophy, education, behavioral sciences, psychology, human development, and area studies. Focus is on the development of an interdisciplinary, international, and problem-solving orientation to research and education. The degree programme is based on international benchmarking standards, has competitive entry requirements and attracts students from all over the world. The current director of this programme is Professor Beverley Yamamoto, who leads a UNESCO Chair in Global Health and Education.

Osaka University's Graduate School of Letters hosts another English-medium program in Global Japanese Studies for graduate students, one of the Graduate Programs for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies.[15]

Osaka University has completed academic exchange agreements with a large number of universities (92 as of 2011) throughout the world and also exchange agreements between schools at Osaka University and schools and institutes in other countries (366 as of 2011). These agreements facilitate the visits of international students studying at Osaka University and the travel of Osaka University students studying at overseas universities, schools, and institutes. In many cases students are able to participate in these exchange agreements without paying additional tuition.[16]

Osaka University's academic alliances include Cornell University (1989), Harvard University (2008), Stanford University (2008), and the California Institute of Technology (2008) in the United States, McGill University (1996) and the University of Toronto (1999) in Canada, Seoul National University (2000) and Yonsei University (1998) in South Korea, Peking University (2001) and Tsinghua University (2004) in China, the National University of Singapore (2008), and Australian National University (1995). In Europe, alliances include the University of Bologna (2006), University of Geneva (2007), and the University of Cologne (1982). Allied institutions in the United Kingdom include the University of Oxford (1997) and Imperial College London (2006).

Osaka University is one of the most selective universities in Japan. Its entrance difficulty is usually considered one of the highest in Japan.[31][32]

Nikkei BP's "Brand rankings of Japanese universities" ranks Osaka University's brand the second strongest in the Kansai region after Kyoto University.[33]

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  Hantaro Nagaoka (長岡 半太郎), 1st President of OU, the pioneer of Japanese physics.
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  Hideki Yukawa (湯川 秀樹), physicist and recipient of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics.
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  Yoichiro Nambu (南部 陽一郎), physicist and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics.
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  Akira Yoshino (吉野 彰), chemist and recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• 
  Hiroshi Ishiguro (石黒 浩), creator of Geminoid robots.

• Shoichi Sakata (坂田 昌一), a physicist, known for Sakata model, Nobel Prize in Physics nominee.
• Takeo Matsubara (松原 武生), a Japanese physicist at Kyoto University, 1961 Nishina Memorial Prize winner.
• Oda Minoru (小田 稔), Japanese astronomer and astrophysicist, Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo.
• Yoshiaki Arata (荒田 吉明), pioneering researchers into nuclear fusion.
• Shigeo Satomura (里村 茂夫), a Japanese physicist.
• Akira Hasegawa (長谷川 晃), a theoretical physicist and engineer.
• Takashi Hibiki (日引 俊詞), a Japanese scientist who is a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at Purdue University.
• Yasuo Tanaka (田中 靖郎), a Japanese astrophysicist and a member of the Japan Academy.
• Sonia Contera, a Spanish physicist, serves st the University of Oxford.
• Satoshi Kawata (河田 聡), a scientist in nanotechnology, photonics.
• Satoshi Hiyamizu (冷水 佐壽), a Japanese professor of electrical engineering.
• Tadao Kasami (嵩 忠雄), Japanese information theorist, IEEE Fellow, 1999 IEEE Claude E. Shannon Award winner.
• Tetsuo Asano (浅野 哲夫), computer scientist, the president of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST).
• Wahid Shams Kolahi, an Iranian scientist and electrical engineer.
• Kilnam Chon, a South Korean computer scientist.
• Nguyễn Ngọc Bình, a Vietnamese computer scientist.

• 
  Tadamitsu Kishimoto (岸本 忠三), a Japanese immunologist, 14th President of OU, 2009 Crafoord Prize winner.
• 
  Toshio Hirano (平野 俊夫), a Japanese immunologist, 17th President of OU, 2009 Crafoord Prize winner.
• 
  Kiyoshi Nagai, a Japanese structural biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, UK.
• 
  Shimon Sakaguchi (坂口 志文), immunologist, 2015 Gairdner Award and 2017 Crafoord Prize winner
• 
  Pratiwi Sudarmono, an Indonesian scientist of microbiology.

• Li Siguang (李四光), a Chinese geologist and politician.
• Hidesaburo Hanafusa (花房 秀三郎), a Japanese virologist, 1982 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research winner.
• Osamu Hayaishi (早石 修), 1986 Wolf Prize laureate in Medicine winner.
• Shizuo Akira (審良 静男), immunologists, 2011 Gairdner Award winner.
• Yoshio Okamoto (岡本 佳男), a Japanese chemist, 2019 Japan Prize winner.
• Yukihiro Ozaki (尾崎 幸洋), a Japanese scientist at Kwansei Gakuin University.
• Tomoaki Kato (加藤 友朗), a pioneer in multiple-organ transplantation.
• Toshio Yanagida (柳田 敏雄), a Japanese biophysicist.
• Yoshizumi Ishino (石野 良純), a Japanese molecular biologist, known for his discovering the DNA sequence of CRISPR.
• Kiyoshi Mizuuchi (水内 潔), a Japanese biochemist.
• Yusuke Nakamura (中村 祐輔), a Japanese prominent geneticist and cancer researcher.

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  Akio Morita (盛田 昭夫), Sony co-founder, Asian of the Century The Big Five.
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  Masataka Taketsuru (竹鶴 政孝), the father of Japan's whisky industry.
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  Osamu Tezuka (手塚 治虫), Japanese manga artist, cartoonist, and animator.
• 
  Ryōtarō Shiba (司馬 遼󠄁太郎), One of the most important writers in contemporary Japan.

• Kunio Nakamura (中村 邦夫), businessman, the president of Panasonic.
• Takamitsu Azuma (東 孝光), Architect. Professor of Osaka University (1985-1997), Emeritus Professor
• Seishi Yokomizo (横溝 正史), novelist and creator of the private detective Kosuke Kindaichi.
• Toshio Masuda (舛田 利雄), film director
• Tetsurō Itodani (糸谷 哲郎), professional shogi player and Ryūō champion.
• Junzo Shono (庄野 潤三), a Japanese novelist, 1954 Akutagawa Prize winner.
• Chin Shunshin (陳 舜臣), a Taiwanese-Japanese novelist, 1968 Naoki Prize winner.
• Glenn Hook, a British academic at the University of Sheffield.
• Tatsuhiko Seo (妹尾 達彦), a Japanese historian.
• Shūdō Higashinakano (東中野 修道), a Japanese historian.
• Yutaka Tsujinaka (辻中 豊), a professor of political science at the University of Tsukuba.
• Keiko McDonald, an American orientalist.
• Akiko Kiso, a Japanese classicist.

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  Michio Morishima (森嶋 通夫), economist, co-founder of International Economic Review.
• 
  Shizuo Kakutani (角谷 静夫), mathematician, professor at Yale, known for Kakutani fixed-point theorem.
• 
  Jun-iti Nagata (長田 潤一), a Japanese mathematician specializing in topology.
• 
  Masatoshi Gündüz Ikeda (池田 正敏), a Turkish mathematician of Japanese ancestry.

• Hiroshi Haruki (春木 博), mathematician, author of Haruki's theorem and Haruki's Lemma.
• Tadashi Nakayama (中山正), a mathematician who made important contributions to representation theory.
• Katsumi Nomizu (野水 克己), a Japanese-American mathematician known for his work in differential geometry.
• Hidehiko Yamabe (山辺 英彦), a Japanese mathematician known for Yamabe flow, Yamabe invariant, Yamabe problem.
• Toru Kumon (公文 公), a Japanese mathematics educator, developer of Kumon method.
• Kengo Hirachi (平地 健吾), a Japanese mathematician, specializing in CR geometry and mathematical analysis.
• Yozo Matsushima (松島 与三), a Japanese mathematician.
• Masao Ogaki (大垣 昌夫), a Japanese economist at Keio University.
• Giorgio Brunello, an Italian economist.
• Kazuya Kamiya (神谷 和也), Japanese economics, professor at Kobe University.
• Takero Doi (土居 丈朗), Japanese economist.

• 
  Mitoji Yabunaka (薮中 三十二), the current Japanese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs.
• 
  Heizo Takenaka (竹中 平蔵), economist serving as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications
• 
  Shinji Tarutoko (樽床 伸二), a Japanese politician and former member of the House of Representatives (Japan).

• Shuzen Tanigawa (谷川 秀善), a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, a member of the House of Councillors (Japan) in the Diet.
• Satoshi Umemura (梅村 聡), a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Councillors (Japan) in the Diet.
• Mitsuo Mitani (三谷 光男), a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Representatives (Japan) in the Diet
• Tadashi Maeda (前田 正), a Japanese politician served s in the House of Representatives (Japan).
• Wataru Ito (伊藤 渉), a Japanese politician of the New Komeito Party.
• Keisuke Kihara (木原 敬介), a former mayor of Sakai, Osaka in Japan.
• Ko Ko Oo, scientist and former Minister of Science and Technology of Burma
• Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed, SAARC Secretary-General

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  Norihiko Hibino (日比野 則彦), a Japanese video game composer and saxophonist.

• Harue Tsutsumi (堤 春恵), a Japanese playwright.
• Koushun Takami (高見 広春), journalist and author of Battle Royale
• Taku Mayumura (眉村 卓), a Japanese novelist, science fiction writer, 1974 and 1996 Seiun Award winner.
• Akira Hori (堀 晃), a Japanese science fiction writer, 1980 Nihon SF Taisho Award and Seiun Award winner.
• Yasumi Kobayashi (小林 泰三), a Japanese author of horror, science fiction, and mystery, 2012 and 2017 Seiun Award winner.
• Takahiro Kimura (木村 貴宏), a Japanese animator, illustrator and character designer.
• Ichirō Sakaki (榊 一郎), a Japanese light novel writer.