Message from the President

Nagasaki University has long been at the vanguard of the fight against unprecedented infectious diseases in Japan. In addition to having our own endemic diseases as a result of our island geography, we also had to deal with infectious diseases that were brought in from overseas, because Nagasaki was the only entry point open to the world during the Edo period (1603-1868). Our experience since then, including at the School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health and the Dejima Special Zone for Research on Infectious Diseases, has expanded the field of infectious disease research at Nagasaki University to the world. In a way, it was inevitable that our university became the first in Japan to adopt the philosophy of “global health.”

However, in the 21st century, our planet faces many global challenges. In addition to climate change, environmental pollution, and the fight against unprecedented infectious diseases such as COVID-19, we also have population problems, food problems, disparities, gender issues, religious and cultural conflicts, and increasing nuclear risks. Under these conditions, Nagasaki University strives to be a core university for regional revitalization, and has declared that we will further imprace global health and set a new goal for realizing planetary health, and will cultivate professionals who will contribute to solving global issues that have caused problems in regions all over the world, as well as promote education and research that seek to solve these issues.

Planetary health is an initiative to search for effective answers (solutions) to continue supporting the health of the planet, which also includes our own health as human beings, and to promote a change in our own awareness and behavior. This is a quest to find the optimal form that our society should take, based on our relationships with the earth and its ecosystems, and it is essential that we work not only from a scientific perspective, but also from an array of diverse perspectives that includes those of citizens, businesses, and governments.

In order to realize planetary health, Nagasaki University is committed to education and research that transcends academic fields, not only in life and medical sciences, but also in the humanities and social sciences, as well as integrated science and technology.