Special Grant Program for International Students (April 2023)

Special Grant Program for International Students / Research Assistant Program of Graduate School of Environmental Science (April 2023)

This program will select students, who can likely contribute internationally in their research field, from those students applying to doctoral courses of Graduate School of Environmental Science.

It is very meaningful to participate in research as a Research Assistant (RA) for the development of your research ability. Each Research Assistant must serve to achieve the objective of a research subject directed by a faculty member of the Graduate School of Environmental Science. The research subjects are listed below.

Period

Maximum 3 years since the first year although the achievement of the objective must be evaluated each year by the committee of the faculty.

Qualifications of application (Eligibility):

Students (mainly from developing countries) who are going to seek admission to the doctor courses of Graduate School of Environmental Science.

〈Notes〉

If the students of this Special Grant Program are also selected as recipients for “DX Doctoral Fellowship”, “Hokkaido University Ambitious Doctoral Fellowship”, or similar doctoral fellowships, they shall choose one of them and decline the others.

Payment Exemption / RA Allowance:

Payment Exemption: Total amount of school fees are entirely covered by Hokkaido University (i.e., entrance exam fee of 30,000 yen, admission fee of 282,000 yen, and annual tuition fee of 535,800 yen for each of three years). RA Allowance (depending on the actual working time): Total: 3 million yen (1 million yen for each of three years)
Travel expenses of entrance exam should be paid by applicant.

Application Period

Until December 12 Monday, 2022

Application for the program:

Applicants are required to submit the documents listed below. The documents should not be written in a language other than English.

1. Curriculum vitae with the applicant’s photograph
2. Academic transcript
3. Graduation certificate
4. List of publications and presentations in scientific meetings
5. Research proposal
6. Direction and comments of potential supervisor and at least one co-supervisor, including proofs of communication between you and the potential supervisors
7. Master’s thesis or other documents in proof of your research ability

Reference and address to apply

Kyoumu-Tantou
Graduate School of Environmental Science
Hokkaido University
Kita 10, Nishi 5, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-0810 Japan
E-mail: kyomu (at) ees.hokudai.ac.jp

List of possible research subjects (2023)

Title: Recovering High Value Bioproducts for Sustainable Fishery by Chemical and Biotechnological Applications

Professor: Akira Onoda

Addressing sustainability involves challenges in productive and efficient use of bioproducts from marine raw materials and processing byproducts. Developing knowledge and methodologies for understanding and transforming marine fishing byproducts is critically important for the generation of bioproducts of interest for high value or high technology applications. The purpose of this research is to develop novel value-added marine bioproducts and their applications as a collaboration project with Universidad de La Serena in Chile. A successful candidate is expected have a Masters Degree in Chemistry or Biotechnology at the time of joining and he/she is required to have the knowledge of Synthetic Polymer Chemistry, Biomaterials, and Materials Science.

Title: Heterogeneous catalysts for the valorization of biomass-derived carbohydrates

Professor: Kiyotaka Nakajima

Building a sustainable society requires a different paradigm using renewable carbon resources such as non-edible biomass and CO2 to produce fuels and platform chemicals in future chemical industries. Our vision is to design catalytic reactions using new heterogeneous catalysts and lignocellulose-derived hydrocarbons, in which scalable production of platform chemicals can be accomplished while minimizing environmental load and energy consumption in work-up processes. This program aims at developing new technologies that convert biomass-derived carbohydrates to platform molecules used for the production of commodity chemicals.