Welcome

Hitotsubashi University was originally founded as a private school for commercial training in 1875, became a national school in 1884, and was established as a national university in 1920. Since then, Hitotsubashi University, as one of the leading social sciences universities in Japan, has contributed to the development of education and research not only in Japan but also worldwide.

The Faculty of Social Sciences was established in 1951 and The Graduate School of Social Sciences was set up the following year. Their establishment in addition to the original faculties of Commerce and Economics sprang from an awareness that those two specialized academic areas alone could not provide the philosophical and historical frameworks that the nation's leaders needed to address the social problems of their time. The fundamental idea behind the Faculty and the Graduate School of Social Sciences was that bringing together social sciences and humanities under one organizational umbrella would produce a better understanding of society than the segmented pursuit of knowledge.

Our mission is to educate students to be high-quality researchers and professionals who possess a wide range of investigative, analytical and leadership skills as well as sound specialized knowledge, which they can use for the benefit of the global community and Japan.