New Horizons in Interdisciplinary Research
Rethinking Values Through Cancer

(1) Introduction to the lecture

KAWAHARA Norie, lecture series moderator, introduced the inaugural lecture of the Spring/Summer 2025 Surviving Cancer in Asia: Cross-boundary Cancer Studies lecture series. She noted she works on research relating to well-being in Asia and that the theme for the Lecture Series in Spring/Summer 2025 will be “The Road toward Asian Well-being.” This is the core theme that will be followed throughout the course. Students will be asked to consider what “well-being” means for people in Asia today. Cancer will be used as a mirror to reflect the realities of today’s Asia. Through this lecture series students will explore what “well-being” truly means by starting with cancer, a major and pressing issue in Asia. The aim is to begin new conversations together, rethinking survival, health and hope across borders.

It was noted the final assignment would be to write a policy proposal for the Asia NCDs conference that will be held in Malaysia in the autumn as a part of the ASEAN Summit pre-meetings. 

Dr. Kawahara noted that the Lecture Series brings together many students from various backgrounds across Asia. All students were encouraged to speak up and join the discussion. 

Dr. Kawahara noted that the Cross-boundary Cancer Studies program explores cancer from many perspectives in addition to medicine, including politics, economics and culture. The program was initiated in 2011 by the late Prof. AKAZA Hideyuki, who stated that “cancer is a mirror reflecting  Asian diverse cultures.” This year marks the 15th anniversary of the lecture series, which is supported by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), which is the oldest and largest global membership organization dedicated to taking action on cancer. 

Through this course students will explore how cancer connects to social structures, from cutting-edge biotechnology and AI, to communities, families and the human condition itself. 

The learning process adopted by this course is a step-by-step academic journey. It is structured as an intellectual journey to critically explore the evolving concept of well-being in Asia through the lens of cancer and aging. Students will go through five key steps to deepen understanding. The five steps are: 1) Critical framing, 2) Suffering as lens, 3) Comparative insight, 4) From theory to design, and 5) Global dialogue. Following the conclusion of the course and based on the knowledge gained from consideration of the above five steps, students will be required to compile their own policy proposal for the September NCDs Summit in Malaysia. The final assignment should therefore not be considered as simply a report, but rather an opportunity for students to develop their own proposals for the future of cancer control in Asia. 

Fig.1  Outline of learning process on the Cross-boundary Cancer Studies program

(2) Lecture - University in Ruin? Landscapes after the Expansion

YOSHIMI Shunya noted that he is not a specialist in the field of cancer studies, but is rather a sociologist, who has written various books about universities, and the future of higher education and universities in general. Some of his other publications concentrate on more focused topics, such as the importance of humanities in social sciences, and also the very difficult future facing universities in Japan and beyond. 

Prof. Yoshimi noted that he would be discussing three topics: 1) universities in crisis, 2) universities beyond borders, and 3) third generation universities and the future for higher education. He noted that he would be posing questions to students throughout the lecture and hoped to have an interactive discussion. 

a) Universities in crisis

Prof. Yoshimi noted that in the postwar era the number of universities in Japan expanded rapidly. In 1945 there were only 48 universities, but by 1950 there were 201 universities, and by 1980 there were 446 universities. Today there are over 800 universities in Japan. However, the number of people aged 18 years in Japan (i.e. university entrance age) has been in continuous decline since the mid-1990s, meaning that the current number of universities is likely to be unsustainable. Since the 1990s the Japanese government has deregulated universities, in response to a collapse in liberal arts education, a deterioration in graduate school education and polarization arising from privatization initiatives at universities. Entering into the 2000s this polarization of faculties, namely those faculties with sufficient funding and those struggling for funds has become even more apparent. 

However, no matter how much the government attempts to deregulate and revitalize the university system, an incontrovertible fact is that the population of university-age students continues to decline. Universities are therefore required to employ marketing strategies to attract high school students. One famous ploy to attract students is to change the name of faculties. Whereas in 1990 there were only 97 faculty names across all universities, by 2015 there were 464 differently named faculty names. 

There are three major backgrounds to the crisis facing universities in Japan. 

Firstly, as noted above, is the rapid decline of the population. In 2017 there were 1.2 million people aged 18 years, whereas in 2040 this figure is projected to fall precipitously to 800,000. Simple arithmetic would suggest that one-third of Japanese universities (approx. 250) will no longer be necessary. 

Secondly, a further factor impacting the crisis is the failure of globalization at Japanese universities. Many professors are still only able to teach in Japanese language, and students’ language abilities are still limited. This means that universities have no basic ability to accept students from overseas who would like to study in English. 

Thirdly, there are low expectations of universities in Japan, with a perceived reliance on short-term usefulness and focus on entrance examinations being uppermost. 

A Chinese student noted that in China the university entrance exam is considered to be the most important exam a person will take in their entire life, as the result will determine the course of their lives. Another important point is that the university entrance exam is entirely equal, in that everyone must take the same exam. 

In East Asia there is a tendency to focus on the university entrance exam as a key turning point in a person’s life. At the same time, society also tends to allocate a high degree of importance to how a student performs in this exam. However, there is also a negative aspect of this intensive focus on entrance exams, because it usually comes at the expense of any interest in what is actually learned during a student’s university years. In other words, the major interest of society in university is the entrance examination outcome, and not the content of what is actually learned while at university. 

Looking around the world, the number of university students has increased from approximately 170 million in 2009 to 290 million in 2020. It is therefore questionable whether there are sufficient jobs globally for such vast numbers of university-educated graduates. 

Japan is facing a fundamental crisis in its university system, which continued to expand following the deregulation reform of the 1990s, even though student population numbers had already peaked. The future of universities is still not clear and one of the problems that some people have citied is that universities have become too large and unwieldy and unresponsive to the latest developments, such as digital transformation, etc. Another problem that has been raised is that there are many barriers within universities themselves, which tend to be siloed. The question, therefore, is how to go beyond such barriers? 

b) Going beyond barriers

There are various barriers in higher education in Japan, including the entrance exam barrier, job-hunting barrier, grade-level barrier, departmental barriers (siloes, and absence of dual-major system), and academic year calendar barriers (vs. western academia). It is imperative for the future of Japanese universities that initiatives are implemented to address these barriers and break them down, and in so doing integrate Japanese universities better into the international system. Such initiatives could include curricular flexibility, greater geographic mobility, global outreach, a unified academic timeline and lifelong learning. 

In the case of Japan students are encouraged to select either a “rikei” (scientific) or “bunkei” (humanities) path at university. Rikei and bunkei are differentiated at the time of the university entrance exam, meaning that students have to decide at high school age the future path that they will take. However, many subjects (e.g. geography, anthropology) could be classified as either “rikei” or “ bunkei,” depending on the specialization. A simple formula for determining whether a subject is science or humanities could be that “Science explores the external world; whereas humanities explore the inner human world.” 

Similarly there are differences among “liberal arts,” “humanities,” and “general education.” Usually liberal arts have medieval origins, such as grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. These subjects were unified by philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The area of “humanities” on the other hand, emerged following the industrial revolution as engineering knowledge expanded, taking learning from a theological basis to a more economics and engineering focus. 

A question that is often asked of university education is how useful it is, but another question is what does “useful” really mean? Instrumental usefulness is only meaningful in relation to pre-defined goals. If the value system changes, its “usefulness” disappears. Instrumental usefulness then is generally focused on the short term, from three to five years. Value-creating usefulness on the other hand is focused on the long term, over a 30-to-100-year period. One of the issues that Japan faces today is that it has an obsession with quick results. There is a greater need for long-term, value-creating knowledge. 

Given the importance of combining instrumental and value-creating knowledge, an ideal approach would be to bring together “rikei” and “bunkei” fields to create a multiple-perspective form of learning. This would combine data science, engineering, environmental science, medical science and urban engineering of “rikei” with law, literature, history, philosophy and sociology of “bunkei.” (Figure 2) This combinative approach is already possible in western universities, which permit  dual majors, something that is not easily realized under the current university system in Japan. This raises the question: Do we need to develop third-generation universities? 

Fig.2  Image of cross-border studies at university, combining the perspectives of “rikei” and “bunkei”

c) Third Generation Universities

In Japan, the concept of “daigaku” or “university” is very different to the origins of the meaning of “university.” Originally “university” referred to a community of teachers and students who were granted freedom of movement within a pan-European network of cities, including merchants, artisans, monks, pilgrims and intellectuals. 

In contrast, the origin of “daigaku,” the Japanese word for “university” (“taigaku in ancient China) was the “Daigaku-ryo” (from the eighth century), the purpose of which was to create bureaucrats for the state, based on concepts of Confucianism, Chinese language, mathematics and law. In modern-era Japan, the Meiji restoration sought to revive ancient systems, and it came to be that the ancient system of “daigaku” was equated with the European concept of “university.” However, from its origins the system of “daigaku” was very vertically organized, whereas “universities,” from the time of their inception were very horizontally oriented in nature. 

In Europe there was a period of expansion of universities during the 14th to 16th centuries, but what has been termed the “first death of university” occurred from the 16th to 18th centuries, when religious wars and absolutism brought about the end of liberal knowledge, and amplified the concept of the nation state. What is more, the printing revolution of the 15th and 16th centuries caused an information explosion, making knowledge more accessible to all people. This is what contributed to the decline of the first era of universities. 

The second birth of the university began from around 19th century, and emerged with the age of enlightenment and the great authors. In Germany, the birth of the “second university” is symbolized by the University of Berlin (Humboldt University of Berlin), founded in 1810. From the 18th to 19th centuries the nation to most clearly propose a new modern nationalism was the Kingdom of Prussia (a region encompassing modern-day northern Germany and Poland). The University of Berlin was created against the backdrop of heightened German nationalism. This was due to Germany’s defeat at the hands of Napoleon.

Following the French revolution at the end of the 18th century, Napoleon had gone on to rule most of the European continent. Prussia suffered a military defeat at the hands of Napoleon and the continued existence of the nation itself was in question. This debacle caused Germany to remodel the nation state. One of the leaders of this remodeling of the nation was Wilhelm von Humboldt a linguist who in 1810 founded the University of Berlin in Germany. In contrast to the universities of the medieval period, the University of Berlin had the full support of the state and attracted many of Germany’s greatest intellects and thinkers for the purpose of creating cutting-edge knowledge in Germany.

It was at this time that the concepts for “laboratories” in science subjects and “seminars” in arts subjects were first conceived, a model which remains in place at modern-day universities. In research-oriented seminars and laboratories selected students would engage in free discussion with their teachers, with the aim of discovering new knowledge. It was in this Humboldt model that research and education were brought together, marking the genesis of the basic structure of modern-day universities.

Looking back further in history, the process of medieval globalization led to the formation of traveling colleges in various regions around the world, including Europe (universities), China (Shoin) and the Middle East (Madrasa). Similarly, there is a history of traveling intellectuals in Japan, including traveling philosophers such as Saigyo, Dogen and Basho. The traveling colleges focused on various schools of thought, including Zen (Buddhism), Confucianism, Kokugaku, and Rangaku (European knowledge). 

After taking into consideration the various histories of universities and knowledge around the world, one of the most important roles of universities can be said to be the creation of new knowledge. In the 19th and 20th centuries universities were organized within nation states and these universities provided instrumental knowledge and value-creating knowledge. The question that must now be considered is what universities of the future will look like, as knowledge crosses borders in the formation of global intellectual heritage (Fig. 3) 

Fig.3  Image of the elements involved in the formation of third generation universities

A further imperative for universities of the future, or “post-universities” will be to look back on the past for inspiration, to develop new “glocally traveling universities.” Global society will become a field for social practice, both in terms of problem solving and value creation. 

So how can the concept of travelling universities be applied to Japan, where population is declining in all prefectures, with the exception of Tokyo? One-third of the entire population of Japan today lives in the greater Tokyo region (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba), however in the 1880s the two most populated prefectures were Ishikawa and Niigata prefectures. Throughout history, local areas of Japan have been a source of arts, culture and food-based customs. However, when universities became concentrated in Tokyo (and to a lesser extent Osaka/Kyoto), this drew in young people from the regions, which irrevocably changed the demographic balance of the country. In order to face the future, it may be advisable for Japan to seek to recreate the “traveling universities” of the past and decentralize the concentration of knowledge.

(3) Discussion

Dr. Kawahara noted that the lecture had provided an excellent opportunity to rethink what it truly means to learn at university, including the line between science and humanities. Cancer, too, is not just a medical event, but also a human-centered event. She noted that Dr. Yoshimi’s lecture gives added insight into how best to approach out-of-field learning and to study in new ways. 

Ms. Wu Ying (student) asked whether Dr. Yoshimi thought that there is any possibility in the future that colleges/universities will move to entirely online learning. 

Dr. Yoshimi responded that while fully online learning is undoubtedly possible, the challenge is to motivate oneself to move beyond the boundaries of one’s home, town or prefecture. If a person were to not move, it would therefore not fulfil the historical definition of “university,” whereby people moved around in the search for and dissemination of new knowledge. Dr. Yoshimi expressed his personal opinion that unless a person travels from one place to another it is not possible to create new knowledge. If online universities were to be combined with AI it would be a very efficient system for teaching and learning, but it is questionable whether it would be conducive to the creation of new knowledge. Face-to-face communication and interaction must remain an important part of the university experience so that students can stimulate and inspire each other. 

Ms. Mashimo (student) asked about the current global political climate in regard to education, because politics can impact the freedom of academic movement. She asked how education can overcome the political trend towards isolationism. 

Dr. Yoshimi responded that when the global pandemic emerged all universities around the world were faced with a crisis, as freedom of movement was stopped. The only way to communicate was via online means.  Although the pandemic has since subsided, the most recent political developments in the United States have sought to restrict movement for students once again and the administration in the U.S. has actively sought to attack its own universities. While on the one hand the university crisis in Japan can be said to have its origins in demographic change and deregulation, the world is facing its own crisis due to reactionary political policies. Universities by their very nature need to be cross-border and interactive in order for research, learning and education to flower. In order to solve pressing and existential issues facing humanity, including climate change, immigration, global risks, etc., global collaboration is of vital importance, and universities can act as an agent for such collaboration. Although it may be difficult to change the difficult political situation in the U.S. and beyond, universities need to recognize that their very reason for existence is to be an effective agent for collaboration. 

In closing, Dr. Yoshimi noted that students participating in the lecture series are all from different backgrounds and disciplines, and each will have their own areas of expertise. He noted that as he had proposed in his lecture, the western system of a double-major, or a two-sword approach, is an excellent means of acquiring knowledge and incorporating different perspectives. 

As an assignment, he asked students to consider which second major they would choose and why, if they were able to embark on a double-major course, and write up their rationale behind such a decision. 

Dr. Kawahara thanked Dr. Yoshimi for his lecture, noting that as a sociologist, he had helped students to perceive the world with a broader view - across space and across time.