Message from the President on the 150th Anniversary of Hitotsubashi University
September 24th 2025
September 24, 2025, marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of Hitotsubashi University. In 1875, Mori Arinori, with support from figures such as Shibusawa Eiichi, known as the father of modern Japanese industry, and Katsu Kaishū, an advocate of westernization, opened the Commercial Training School in the business district of Ginza Owarichō. Since then, our history has run parallel to the modernization of Japan. From our inception, our mission has been to cultivate individuals who can thrive on the international stage through world-class commercial education—an ethos encapsulated in the ideal “Captains of Industry.”
The Commercial Training School subsequently developed into the Tokyo Commercial School, the Higher Commercial School, and the Tokyo University of Commerce. After the devasting Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, we made the bold decision to move to the suburbs and established our current campus in Kunitachi. In 1949, with the introduction of the new national university system as part of Japan’s postwar educational reforms, we repositioned ourselves as a comprehensive university of the social sciences, and through a campus ballot, adopted the name Hitotsubashi University.
Thereafter, we at Hitotsubashi University continued to pursue the advancement of the social sciences and cultivate outstanding talent while addressing the changing needs of society. From the 1990s onward, we supplemented our four Faculties and Graduate Schools—Commerce and Management, Economics, Law, and Social Sciences—with the Graduate School of Language and Society (1996), the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (1998), the School of Law (2004), and the School of International and Public Policy (2005). In 2000, we opened the Kanda Campus (now the Chiyoda Campus) in the National Center of Sciences in our historical home of Hitotsubashi. In 2018, to strengthen professional graduate education, we reorganized and integrated the Graduate School of Commerce and Management and the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy to establish the Graduate School of Business Administration, also known as the Hitotsubashi University Business School (HUB, with the School of Business Administration and the School of International Corporate Strategy), and the Department of Business Law in the Graduate School of Law. These faculties and graduate schools, together with the Institute of Economic Research and the Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS, established in 2014), and supported by one of the largest university libraries in Japan, provide a robust foundation for excellence in research and education in the social sciences and serve as a hub where scholars gather and share their work worldwide.
In recognition of our excellence in education and research in the humanities and social sciences, Hitotsubashi University was named a Designated National University in 2019. We have since pursued initiatives to become a hub for leading the reform of Japan’s social sciences and building a bridge to a sustainable future. At the time of our founding, commerce was scarcely regarded in Japan as a subject worthy of formal education or scholarship. Because of this, we have steadfastly examined what scholarship is and what it is for, forging a distinctive academic culture and advancing the social sciences as a practical discipline dedicated to improving society. Inheriting this aspiration, we are committed to creating a world-class research hub in the social sciences, and to this end, are identifying strategic priority areas, thoroughly internationalizing and strengthening the competitiveness of our faculty, and enhancing the functions of the HIAS. In 2023, we established the Faculty and Graduate School of Social Data Science, our first new faculty in seventy years, to pioneer a new social science through integration and co-creation across the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Hitotsubashi University is known for small-group, seminar-centered education in which faculty and students learn from one another through intensive dialogue—an approach that cultivates individuals who respect freedom and individuality, and who are equipped with a combination of broad learning with knowledge, sound judgment, and the ability to envision and design. Our many alumni, who are active across Japan and around the world, are the strongest evidence that Hitotsubashi University is an outstanding academic community despite not having either large experimental facilities or a university hospital.
Looking back over a century and a half, even in the most turbulent of times, our graduates have had the courage to open new paths to the future and play leading roles across a wide range of fields including industry, academia, and the public sphere. We take pride in this tradition, and as a university that leads Japan’s social sciences, will further strengthen our partnerships with diverse stakeholders including educational and research institutions in Japan and abroad, industry, and governmental and non-governmental organizations, and continue to strive for self-innovation toward creating knowledge and cultivating talent for a sustainable future.
Satoshi Nakano
President, Hitotsubashi University
