The Government of Japan has decided that more active competition among universities - national, public and private - would be conductive to raising academic standards, particularly in research, to those recognized internationally. As part of this policy, the "Center of Excellence (COE) Program for the 21st Century", was initiated in 2002 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Within the provision for humanities and following third-party evaluation, it was decided to support the extension of the Research Institute for Higher Education (RIHE) to create a center of research in higher education at the doctorate level and to promote its ability to compete and operate at the highest international level. The total budget for the COE program in the 2002 fiscal year was 18.2 billion yen.

On the other hand, Hiroshima University has made efforts to improve the quality of education from a long-term point of view in order to achieve our goal of being "distinguished throughout the world as a top-level research university" as well as selectively improving our research systems for promoting basic and pioneering research. We also place priority on social contributions as a mission of the University along with education and research, and continue to develop a social cooperative system at the University to carry out collaboration and cooperation with regional communities and the international community. For the future, RIHE has been designated as a "Special Research Institute = Internal COE," and will be selectively enhanced. We believe that through the establishment of the COE, the RIHE will contribute to improving global standards of research in higher education over the course of major university reforms.