The University of Tokyo’s URA Certification Process

With the aim of securing and training excellent URAs, the University of Tokyo introduced a URA certification process in 2016. Through this process,
faculty and staff from within the university who meet the criteria in the definition given above are certified by the president of the university
as UTokyo URAs in categories appropriate to their skills and experience.
After certification, the faculty or staff member may use the title “UTokyo URA” and they continue to work in the same department.
Unlike at many Japanese universities, UTokyo URAs are not concentrated in the Central Administration Office, but instead work in the Faculties,
Graduate Schools, and Institutes. This allows them to work more closely with researchers and engage more flexibly in research development.
We aim to build a comprehensive and sophisticated team of URAs who are experts not only in research development, but also in a variety of
academic fields.

Because URAs at the University of Tokyo do not belong to a single organization, but instead work in different departments with a wide variety of
job titles, professional development is mainly carried out on the job. However, practical and awareness-based training is also offered.