The history of the Graduate School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine, Kobe University goes back to Kobe Hospital, which was established in 1869. Up until now, we have been promoting advanced basic and clinical medical research, training excellent doctors and medical researchers with abundant humanity and ethics as well as advanced specialized knowledge and skills, and enhancing regional medical care in Hyogo Prefecture.

Within the governmental framework of the “Priority Support for National University Reform” , Kobe University has been working to promote outstanding education, research and social implementation throughout the university since 2016, standing on a par with overseas universities that are producing outstanding results, evidenced by the university’s vision "Towards a Global Hub for the Multidisciplinary Co-Creation of Research and Education That Cultivates Profound Knowledge and Outstanding Innovators". As a graduate school and faculty of medicine of a national university that has sustainable competitiveness and creates high added value, we aim to create advanced research and innovation in collaboration with Kobe University Hospital, and foster excellent researchers and clinicians who can put this into practice. We will also contribute to the achievement of goals by strengthening cooperation with other departments within the university, engaging with local communities and society, fostering collaboration between industry, government and academia, and promoting international cooperation.

The super-aging society with a declining birthrate and the current COVID-19 disaster have greatly affected education and research at the Graduate School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine, as well as medical treatment, education and research at Kobe University Hospital. Until now, we have conducted medical care, education and research with a focus on safety and security. In addition, we have established a system that introduces digitization and remote control in order to realize medical care, education, and research that are more resilient, safe, and secure in response to changes in society and the environment. In medical school education in the era of and after corona, we will give due consideration to the mental care of students and aim to improve the quality of education and learning based on learners.

Committees have been set up at the Graduate School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine, for education on each of the undergraduate, master's and doctoral courses, and continuous reforms have been carried out to date. We have built a consistent education system, including postgraduate clinical education, to train doctors and medical researchers who have both a scientist's perspective and a global perspective. The Faculty of Medicine has a special regional framework and a basic medical research doctor training program and MD-PhD program as an integrated education system for medical schools and graduate schools, both of which support career paths so that students can devote themselves to their studies without anxiety.

We have recently achieved remarkable results in the research and development of medical devices, which has become a new feature. On campus, the Center for Advanced Medical Engineering Research & Development (CAMED) was established in collaboration with the Graduate School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Engineering, and the Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation. Within the Kobe Medical Industry City, in collaboration with Kobe City, we have formed an integrated medical device research, development, and creation base for the Faculty of Medicine as a project of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for the development of a regional science demonstration base. In a collaboration between the Graduate Schools of Engineering of Kobe University and the University of Hyogo, biomedical engineering fusion research is underway. In 2017, we established the International Clinical Cancer Research Center attached to the Faculty of Medicine (ICCRC) as a university medical and research institution in Kobe Medical Industry City. ICCRC is a research and education base for the purpose of promoting advanced treatment for cancer, research and development of innovative medical devices through medical-engineering collaboration, and interacting with international medical institutions. We have strengthened its functions as a research hospital that is close to patients.

In 2019, the “Kobe Vision for the Healthcare of Tomorrow”, which was proposed by Kobe University together with Kobe City and industry, was adopted as a project eligible for subsidies for the "Government Grant for the Establishment of Regional Universities and Industries". This vision is a unique initiative to create an ecosystem that continuously generates innovation in the field of domestic medical device development, an area of great societal need. We aim to realize regional revitalization by conducting research and development of advanced medical devices, nurturing creative development personnel, and promoting further development of the medical industry and local employment and settlement of young people. In order to put these into practice, as a new educational organization that integrates medicine and engineering, the Department of Medical Device Engineering (Doctoral Program) was established at the Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe University in April 2023, and a new undergraduate program will be established in 2025. The purpose of establishing these programs is to cultivate creative development of human resources, who can create innovative medical device concepts by making full use of comprehensive knowledge related to medicine, engineering, intellectual property, etc., and can be responsible for the most important initial developments in the process of medical device development. On campus, students in these programs carry out the initial development of actual medical devices, form development teams with medical device developers employed as faculty members and cross-appointed faculty members at companies, and develop realistic medical devices. Our ultimate goal is to train students' practical skills by endowing them with the above experiences and to develop human resources who can realize the implementation of medical devices in society.

As a research university, we believe that it is important to promote excellent basic medical research and excellent advanced clinical research, and to strive to improve the environment for that purpose. In basic medical research, we have outstanding researchers around fields such as signal transduction, infectious diseases, and neuroscience. In addition to promoting individual research with a high degree of uniqueness and originality, we utilize research environments such as the Center for Medical Transformation (CMX) and the Center for Infectious Diseases to promote joint research through basic and clinical collaboration as well as interdisciplinary collaboration. In the future, we will promote collaboration between the newly established Department of Medical Device Engineering and CAMED, which is the place for medical device development. In order to successfully link the results of basic research from these centers to clinical research, we will collaborate with Kobe University Hospital, which is a Clinical Research Core Hospital. In recent years, in addition to the development of various elemental technologies, the progress of machine learning, AI technology and digitization have combined to increase the momentum for promoting data-driven research. We will establish a system for big data-driven research through collaboration between basic and clinical medicine and promotion of interdisciplinary research.

For the continuous development of the Graduate School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine, we will continue to do our best to develop excellent human resources who can play an active role on the front lines of medicine in Japan and overseas. We look forward to your continued support and encouragement.