Invited Research

Establishing a New Paradigm of Social/Human Sciences based on Relational Studies : In order to Overcome the Contemporary Global Crises

This project is premised on the assumption that the frameworks of human and social sciences in the 20th century are ill-equipped to adequately analyse instances of the "global crises" that the international community currently faces in diverse areas such as the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
To overcome this challenge, we focus on the analysis of complicated social, economic, and political relationships at various levels; from small-scale social relations in local communities to the wider levels of transnational, trans-state and globe-wide relations. The Project is intended to uncover how relationships synchronize and influence each other, and to establish new frameworks to analyse the complex and intertwined webs of relationships.
We publicly call for ambitious research plans, both theoretical and empirical, from any researchers whose work has a close congruence with the above motives of our research area, and who are able to contribute to develop establishing frameworks for a new academic field of"Relational Studies on Global Crises".

The subjects of the research studies that we call for are:
C04: Studies which propose innovative frameworks and methods for the analysis of relationships, and which ambitiously pursue the establishment of interdisciplinary and cross-cutting theories and perspectives for relational studies. We accept theoretical and methodological studies from the fields of human, social and natural sciences, no matter whether they are quantitative and qualitative.
A01, A02, B01, B02, B03: Studies which can contribute to, compensate and enhance the planned research units. Applicants should fully understand the research purposes and research activities of the each unit's existing planned research, and should be ready to work jointly with them.

In each field, it is necessary for publicly-invited research plans to include the global viewpoints, the factors related to the "contemporary crises", and to deal with "relationship". The recipients are required to participate in the research events that are organised by the research management units, as we find it most important to establish theoretical frameworks for Relational Studies on Global Studies through general meetings and trans-unit research activities on the bases of shared understandings of our overall research objectives . We especially expect the studies on the areas which the pre-existing research units do not cover, such as East Asia, South Asia, and Russia and surrounding countries. We look forward to participation particularly by young researchers in our Project.

Research Group Upper Limit of Annual Budget (Million yen) Number of research projects scheduled to be selected
A01: Studies on State and Institutions 3 4
A02: Studies on Regional Integration
B01: Studies on Norms and Identity
B02: Studies on Cross-Border Networks
B03: Studies on Global Networks
C04: Studies which propose innovative theoretical frameworks and methods, contributing Relational Studies on Global Studies Projects with certain size of field researches: 3 4
without field researches: 2 2

Download the Research Proposal Document

The deadline for the submission of the Research Proposal Document is:
November 7, 2018 (Wednesday), 4:30 pm
(This deadline should be strictly observed.)

Note 1: Research Proposal Document that is submitted after this deadline will not be accepted for any reason. Therefore, the documents should be submitted well in advance.

Note 2: After the submission of the application documents, it is not possible to make corrections or to re-submit them.