PhD in Smart Innovation Program

Hiroshima University's three-year doctoral Smart Innovation Program is based in Hiroshima, Japan, taught in English, with intake in April or October. The university was founded in a city known worldwide for its history as the site of the first atomic bombing, and it operates under a founding principle centered on unity, freedom, and the pursuit of peace. Hiroshima University has grown into one of Japan's largest and most comprehensive universities, comprising 12 schools, 4 graduate schools, an attached research institute, a university hospital, and 11 attached schools, and it was selected as one of 13 universities in the 2014 Top Global University Project and one of 13 universities in the 2018 WISE Program, a doctoral program for world-leading innovative and smart education. A doctoral program organized around smart innovation typically draws on multiple technical fields, such as information technology, engineering, and systems design, to develop new approaches to complex problems, encouraging candidates to combine methods from different disciplines in their dissertation research. Study at this level usually pairs advanced interdisciplinary coursework with independent research projects, supported by faculty working across the technical fields that feed into smart innovation research. Graduates of interdisciplinary innovation-focused doctoral programs commonly pursue careers in research and development roles across technology-driven industries, academic research, and leadership positions in organizations pursuing new technical solutions. Because the Smart Innovation Program is explicitly tied to Hiroshima University's WISE Program status, doctoral candidates join a track built specifically around producing researchers equipped to work across disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of new solutions.