Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University

The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University is a private, interdisciplinary graduate school in Onna, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, known simply as OIST.冲绳科学技术大学院大学是一所位于日本冲绳县恩纳村的私立跨学科研究生院，通常简称 OIST。

It was established by the Japanese government in 2011 and offers a single five-year doctoral programme in science, taught entirely in English, with more than half of its faculty and students recruited from outside Japan.学校由日本政府于 2011 年设立，只开设一个五年制理学博士项目，全部以英语授课，教师与学生中有一半以上来自日本以外。

It placed in the 401-500 band of the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2026 and 657th in the U.S. News global ranking for 2026-2027, but appears in neither the Times Higher Education nor the QS world ranking for 2027.学校在 2026 年软科世界大学学术排名中位列第 401-500 名区间，在 2026 至 2027 年度《美国新闻与世界报道》全球大学排名中位列第 657 名，但未进入 2027 年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名，也未进入 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名。

History

• In June 2001 Kōji Omi, then minister of state for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs and for science and technology policy, announced plans to establish a new graduate university in Okinawa, setting in motion a decade of planning that ended with accreditation in 2011.2001 年 6 月，时任冲绳及北方领土事务兼科学技术政策担当大臣的尾身幸次宣布，计划在冲绳建立一所新的研究生院大学，由此开启了长达十年、直至 2011 年获得认证的筹建过程。
• A Board of Governors was appointed in 2004 to oversee the project, giving the planned institution an independent governing body before it had any students.2004 年，学校设立了理事会，在尚无学生之时便为这所筹建中的机构建立了独立治理架构。
• In 2005 the Diet recognised OIST as an independent administrative institution, and in August of that year the OIST Promotion Corporation was established to build the campus and recruit staff.2005 年，日本国会认定 OIST 为独立行政法人，同年 8 月，冲绳科学技术大学院大学促进机构成立，负责建设校园与招聘人员。
• The first laboratory building opened in March 2010, a year before the university itself was formally accredited.2010 年 3 月，第一栋实验楼启用，比学校正式获得认证还早一年。
• The graduate university was founded in 2011 as a special school corporation under the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University School Corporation Act, registered as private while being financed by the national government.2011 年，学校依据日本《冲绳科学技术大学院大学学园法》作为特殊学校法人设立，名义上登记为私立，实由国家财政支持。
• It was accredited in November 2011, and the institution is supervised by the Cabinet Office rather than by the education ministry that oversees most Japanese universities.学校于 2011 年 11 月获得认证，其主管机关为内阁府，而非管辖日本多数大学的文部科学省。
• In June 2012 the second laboratory building opened, and in September 2012 the university welcomed its first cohort of doctoral students, admitted after accreditation the previous November.2012 年 6 月，第二栋实验楼投入使用，同年 9 月，学校在头年 11 月获得认证后迎来首批博士研究生。
• On 29 and 30 June 2013 the Okinawa prefectural government and the Japanese environment ministry held an international environmental dialogue at the new university.2013 年 6 月 29 日至 30 日，冲绳县政府与日本环境省在这所新建大学共同举办了环境问题国际对话会。
• The third laboratory building opened in March 2015, the same year an external peer review panel reported on the university's first years of operation.2015 年 3 月，第三栋实验楼启用，同年一个外部同行评议专家组就学校最初几年的运行情况提交了报告。
• The Marine Science Station opened at Seragaki in June 2016, giving the university a seawater laboratory about eight kilometres from its main campus.2016 年 6 月，海洋科学站（Marine Science Station）在濑良垣启用，为学校提供了距主校区约八公里的海水实验室。
• Peter Gruss, formerly president of the Max Planck Society, became president of OIST in January 2017 and led the university until 2022.曾任马克斯·普朗克学会主席的彼得·格鲁斯于 2017 年 1 月出任校长，并执掌学校至 2022 年。
• In February 2018 the university awarded its first doctorates to fourteen graduates, and Steven Chu, the 1997 Nobel laureate in physics, spoke at the ceremony.2018 年 2 月，学校向首批 14 名毕业生授予博士学位，1997 年诺贝尔物理学奖得主朱棣文在典礼上致辞。
• In 2019 the Nature Index ranked OIST first in Japan and ninth in the world for the share of its research that appeared in high-quality science journals when normalised by size.2019 年，自然指数按规模归一化后，将 OIST 列为日本第一、世界第九的高质量科研产出机构，衡量的是其研究成果发表于高水平科学期刊的比例。
• The fourth laboratory building opened in April 2020, adding administrative offices, about twenty laboratories and a centre for research on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.2020 年 4 月，第四栋实验楼启用，新增行政办公空间、约二十个实验室以及一个儿童注意缺陷多动障碍研究中心。
• By May 2022 the university enrolled 242 doctoral students from 50 countries, of whom 81 percent were international and 40 percent identified as women.至 2022 年 5 月，学校在读博士生 242 人，来自 50 个国家，其中 81% 为国际学生，40% 为女性。
• In the 2022 Nature Index, without normalisation for size, OIST ranked 14th in Japan and 372nd in the world.在未按规模归一化的 2022 年自然指数中，OIST 位列日本第 14、世界第 372 位。
• By November 2025 the faculty had grown to 98 assistant, associate and full professors, all recruited through international searches.至 2025 年 11 月，学校教师规模增至 98 人，包括助理教授、副教授与正教授，均通过国际招聘产生。
• In 2026 Daniel Zajfman, formerly president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, was serving as interim president of the university.2026 年，曾任魏茨曼科学研究所所长的丹尼尔·扎伊夫曼担任学校临时校长。

Academics

• OIST offers only a five-year doctoral programme in science, admitting about 50 students a year and awarding no bachelor's or master's degrees.OIST 只开设五年制理学博士项目，每年招收约 50 名学生，不授予学士或硕士学位。
• All education and research are conducted in English, a policy that supports the recruitment of faculty and students from more than 50 countries.学校全部教学与研究均以英语进行，这一政策支撑了其从 50 多个国家招聘教师与学生。
• The university has no departments, organising research instead into units led by individual professors, with 65 units spanning seven broad fields, so there are no faculties or chairs in the traditional sense.学校不设院系，而以教授为首组建研究单元，全校 65 个单元横跨七大学术领域，因此没有传统意义上的学院与教研室。
• Those fields are neuroscience, physics, chemistry, mathematical and computational sciences, molecular, cellular and developmental biology, environmental and ecological sciences, and marine science.这七大领域分别是神经科学、物理学、化学、数学与计算科学、分子细胞与发育生物学、环境与生态学以及海洋科学。
• First-year students rotate through three units before choosing a specialisation, a structure intended to encourage cross-disciplinary research from the start of the doctorate.一年级学生须先在三个研究单元轮转，然后才确定专业方向，这一设计旨在从博士阶段之初就鼓励跨学科研究。
• Each doctoral programme is tailored to the individual student, and students are encouraged to place their research in cross-disciplinary areas rather than within a single established field.每位博士生的培养方案都按个人情况量身定制，学校鼓励学生把研究置于跨学科领域，而不是局限于某一个成熟学科之内。
• Each doctoral student receives about three million yen a year in financial support, described by the university's Chinese-language profile as the highest such stipend in Japan.每名博士生每年可获得约 300 万日元资助，学校的中文资料称其为日本额度最高的同类奖学金。
• Competition for admission is described as far exceeding that for graduate schools of Japan's top national universities, with about 50 places filled each year from a worldwide pool.入学竞争被形容为远超日本顶尖国立大学的研究生院，每年从全球申请者中录取约 50 人。
• The university is a special school corporation financed through two government subsidies, one for operations and one for facilities, rather than through tuition.学校是特殊学校法人，经费来自政府的两项补贴，一项用于日常运营，一项用于设施建设，而非依赖学费。
• Although registered as a private university, it is in practice funded by the state, a model it shares with the Open University of Japan.学校虽登记为私立大学，实际上由国家出资，这一模式与放送大学学园相似。
• Research support is concentrated in shared facilities, including an electron microscope suite, a DNA sequencing centre and a supercomputing centre in the first laboratory building, all shared across units rather than owned by individual laboratories.科研支撑集中于共享设施，第一栋实验楼内设有电子显微镜平台、DNA 测序中心与超级计算中心，这些设施由各研究单元共用，而非归某一实验室所有。
• The Technology Development and Innovation Center in the third laboratory building handles industrial partnerships and intellectual property, and a 500 square metre Innovation Square incubates start-up companies.第三栋实验楼内的技术开发与创新中心负责产业合作与知识产权事务，另有一个 500 平方米的创新广场用于孵化初创企业。
• The Marine Science Station operates indoor and outdoor seawater tanks and wet laboratories, with seawater pumped directly from the sea.海洋科学站设有室内外海水水槽与湿实验室，海水直接从海中抽取。
• A Children's Research Center in the fourth laboratory building is dedicated to research on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.第四栋实验楼内的儿童研究中心专门研究儿童注意缺陷多动障碍。
• The Graduate School itself sits in the third laboratory building, alongside about twenty laboratories and offices.研究生院设于第三栋实验楼内，与约二十个实验室及办公室相邻。
• Faculty are divided into assistant, associate and tenured professors, and the university reports 98 of them as of November 2025.教师分为助理教授、副教授与终身教授，学校称截至 2025 年 11 月共有 98 人。
• Students are encouraged to work across disciplines, and the university's units are built around research problems rather than around traditional faculty boundaries.学校鼓励学生跨学科工作，研究单元围绕研究问题而非传统学科边界组建。
• The university does not run undergraduate teaching, so its laboratories, library and seminars are dedicated entirely to doctoral training and research.学校不承担本科教学，因此其实验室、图书馆与研讨空间全部用于博士培养与研究。
• Government subsidies cover both operating costs and capital projects, which is how a university of fewer than 300 students sustains large laboratory buildings.政府补贴同时覆盖运营成本与基建项目，这使一所学生不足 300 人的学校得以维持大型实验楼群。

Campus

• The main campus is in Tancha, Onna-son, on the west coast of Okinawa's main island, and the university also lists Seaside Campus, Seragaki Campus and a Tokyo office.主校区位于冲绳本岛西海岸恩纳村的谷茶，学校另设海滨校区、濑良垣校区以及东京办事处。
• As of 2025 the main campus held five laboratory buildings, which together accommodate the majority of the university's research activity, with wet and dry laboratories, offices and shared equipment in each.截至 2025 年，主校区已有五栋实验楼，学校的大部分研究活动都在其中进行，各楼均设有湿实验室、干实验室、办公室与共享设备。
• Campus architecture is designed to foster interdisciplinary contact, with shared research spaces, open corridors, skywalks and common areas between buildings.校园建筑刻意促进跨学科交流，设有共享研究空间、开放连廊、空中步道与楼宇之间的公共区域。
• Its buildings follow a Stanford University model, according to the university's Chinese-language description, adapted to Okinawa's climate and to the needs of a research campus.据学校的中文资料，校舍依斯坦福大学风格建造，并针对冲绳的气候与研究型校园的需求做了调整。
• The entrance is marked by a Tunnel Gallery that leads to a glass elevator and then spreads into different parts of the campus, and the gallery doubles as an exhibition space for science and art.校园入口以「隧道画廊」为标志，经玻璃电梯通向校园各处，该画廊同时用作科学艺术展览空间。
• The first laboratory building contains wet and dry laboratories, faculty offices and the electron microscope suite, DNA sequencing centre and supercomputing centre.第一栋实验楼设有湿实验室与干实验室、教师办公室，以及电子显微镜平台、DNA 测序中心与超级计算中心。
• The second laboratory building is linked to the centre building by a suspended skywalk over a valley and houses about twenty research units, laser laboratories and clean rooms.第二栋实验楼通过横跨山谷的悬空步道与中心楼相连，内设约二十个研究单元、激光实验室与洁净室。
• The second building earned LEED Silver certification, one of the clearest signals of the university's environmental design ambitions.第二栋实验楼获得 LEED 银级认证，是学校环保设计目标最明确的标志之一。
• The third laboratory building adjoins the second and connects to the first and to the centre court by skywalks and corridors.第三栋实验楼与第二栋相连，并通过空中步道与连廊通往第一栋实验楼和中心庭院。
• The fourth laboratory building is the largest, standing on higher ground and holding the president's and provost's offices as well as about twenty wet and dry laboratories.第四栋实验楼规模最大，地势较高，内设校长与教务长办公室以及约二十个湿实验室和干实验室。
• A fifth laboratory building is planned to contain seven dry laboratories, thirteen wet laboratories and an animal vivarium, and the university describes it as either recently completed or still in development.规划中的第五栋实验楼将包含 7 个干实验室、13 个湿实验室与一个动物饲养设施，学校对其状态的表述为「近期建成或仍在建设中」。
• The Marine Science Station at Seragaki lies about eight kilometres from the main campus and is built around indoor and outdoor tanks fed with seawater pumped from the sea, together with wet laboratories and offices.濑良垣的海洋科学站距主校区约八公里，围绕以海水直接供给的室内外水槽建设，并配有湿实验室与办公室。
• Innovation Square is a 500 square metre mixed-use facility with wet laboratories, dry laboratories and computational research space for start-up companies and collaborative projects with industry.创新广场是一座 500 平方米的混合用途设施，为初创企业及与产业界的合作项目提供湿实验室、干实验室与计算研究空间。
• Sustainability shapes the design: LED lighting is used in almost all laboratory spaces, energy-efficient mechanical systems run throughout, and buildings are detailed for typhoon resilience, natural ventilation and ecological preservation.可持续理念贯穿设计，几乎所有实验空间都采用 LED 照明，节能的机电系统遍布全楼，建筑还针对抗台风、自然通风与生态保护做了专门处理。
• Housing is organised into the Village Center, West Court, East Court, South Hill and the Gardens, with one-, two- and three-bedroom units for families and individuals, and the Village Center combines apartments with shared community facilities on the ground floor.住宿分为村落中心、西苑、东苑、南山与花园等组团，提供一居至三居单元，其中村落中心把公寓与底层的共享社区设施结合在一起。
• Faculty may live in Hillside Faculty Houses near the main campus or in Seaside Faculty Houses, which overlook the ocean and are designed for larger families.教师可入住主校区附近的山麓教师住宅，或选择面朝大海、为多口之家设计的海滨教师住宅。
• The campus includes a library, an auditorium seating about five hundred people, seminar rooms, a café and a full-service restaurant, and the auditorium hosts lectures, symposia and commencement ceremonies.校园内设有图书馆、可容纳约五百人的礼堂、多间研讨室、咖啡厅与提供正餐的餐厅，礼堂用于讲座、学术研讨会与毕业典礼。

Reputation

• The Academic Ranking of World Universities 2026 places OIST in the 401-500 band.2026 年软科世界大学学术排名将 OIST 列入第 401-500 名区间。
• The U.S. News global ranking for 2026-2027 places it 657th, while the Times Higher Education and QS rankings for 2027 do not include it.2026 至 2027 年度《美国新闻与世界报道》全球大学排名将学校列在第 657 名，而 2027 年泰晤士高等教育与 QS 世界大学排名均未收录该校。
• A 2015 external peer review panel found OIST comparable to the 25 universities ranked highest by Times Higher Education, QS or Shanghai Jiao Tong on all eight criteria it examined.2015 年一个外部同行评议专家组认为，在其考察的全部 8 项指标上，OIST 与泰晤士高等教育、QS 或上海交大排名前 25 的高校相当。
• Those criteria covered campus infrastructure, management structure and processes, academic programmes and faculty recruitment, the graduate programme, instrumentation and technology transfer.这些指标涵盖校园基础设施、管理架构与流程、学术项目与教师招聘、研究生培养、仪器设备以及技术转移。
• In 2019 the Nature Index placed OIST first in Japan and ninth in the world when research output was normalised by institutional size.2019 年，自然指数在按机构规模归一化后，将 OIST 列为日本第一、世界第九。
• Without that normalisation the university ranked 14th in Japan and 372nd in the world in the 2022 Nature Index, reflecting its small size.在未做规模归一化的 2022 年自然指数中，学校位列日本第 14、世界第 372 位，这反映了其规模之小。
• Its admissions are described as more competitive than those of graduate schools at Japan's top national universities, with about 50 places a year.学校招生被形容为比日本顶尖国立大学的研究生院竞争更激烈，每年仅约 50 个名额。
• More than half of faculty and students come from outside Japan, and 81 percent of the 242 doctoral students enrolled in 2022 were international.学校教师与学生中有一半以上来自日本以外，2022 年在读的 242 名博士生中有 81% 为国际学生。
• Forty percent of those students identified as women, a share well above the average of Japanese science and engineering graduate schools.这些学生中有 40% 为女性，比例明显高于日本理工科研究生院的平均水平。
• The university awarded its first fourteen doctorates in 2018, seven years after its founding, and has remained a doctoral-only institution since.学校在创立七年后的 2018 年授予首批 14 个博士学位，此后始终保持只授予博士学位的定位。
• It belongs to the same category as King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, a graduate-only research university created and financed by the state, and both are small, doctoral-only and funded by government rather than by tuition.它与沙特阿拉伯的阿卜杜拉国王科技大学同属一类，都是由国家创办并出资、只培养研究生的研究型大学，两者规模都不大，只授予博士学位，经费来自政府而非学费。

Student life

• Students live in university housing ranging from the Village Center to South Hill, which offers smaller one-bedroom apartments intended mainly for students and researchers.学生住在校内住房，从村落中心到南山组团不等，后者提供主要面向学生与研究人员的较小一居室公寓。
• The Child Development Center provides childcare for children from about two months to preschool age, offering bilingual early education, art and sport, and the School-Aged Program at Seaside House covers kindergarten to grade six.儿童发展中心为约两个月大至学龄前的儿童提供托育服务，内容涵盖双语早期教育、艺术与体育，海滨之家开设的学龄项目则覆盖幼儿园至小学六年级。
• The Ganjuu Wellbeing Service offers psychological counselling to students, staff and their families, while the Health Center in the fourth laboratory building provides routine care and vaccinations.甘朱身心健康服务为学生、教职工及其家属提供心理咨询，第四栋实验楼内的健康中心则提供日常诊疗与疫苗接种。
• Daily services include a community gym, laundry, dry cleaning, a shuttle bus and several shared vehicles for campus members.日常服务包括社区健身房、洗衣与干洗服务、班车以及若干供校园成员共用的车辆。
• The campus café and restaurant, the library and the 500-seat auditorium serve as the main indoor gathering places outside the laboratories.校园咖啡厅与餐厅、图书馆以及可容纳五百人的礼堂，是实验室之外主要的室内聚会场所。
• The Tunnel Gallery hosts science and art exhibitions and events, making the entrance route itself part of campus cultural life.隧道画廊举办科学艺术展览与活动，使入口通道本身成为校园文化生活的一部分。
• Most services are offered in both English and Japanese, and the OIST Resource Center helps residents navigate local schools, hospitals and government offices, supporting a community drawn from 50 countries.学校多数服务以英语和日语双语提供，OIST 资源中心还协助居民办理当地学校、医院与政府机构事务，服务对象来自 50 个国家。
• With students from 50 countries, the community is deliberately international, and social events are organised by the student support office.学生来自 50 个国家，社区因此高度国际化，各类社交活动由学生支持部门组织。
• Short-term furnished apartments are available for visiting scientists and for participants in conferences and workshops held on campus.校内备有配备家具的短期公寓，供访问学者以及参加校园会议与工作坊的人员使用。

Notable people

• Kōji Omi, a former minister of state for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs and for science and technology policy, announced the plan for a new Okinawan graduate university in June 2001.尾身幸次曾任冲绳及北方领土事务兼科学技术政策担当大臣，他于 2001 年 6 月宣布了在冲绳新建研究生院大学的计划。
• Jonathan Dorfan, a particle physicist and former director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, served as OIST's founding president from 2011 to 2016.粒子物理学家、曾任美国 SLAC 国家加速器实验室主任的乔纳森·多夫曼（Jonathan Dorfan）于 2011 年至 2016 年担任 OIST 首任校长。
• Dorfan led the university through its accreditation, the opening of its second laboratory building and the admission of its first students in 2012.多夫曼任内学校获得认证，第二栋实验楼启用，并于 2012 年迎来首批学生。
• Peter Gruss, a developmental biologist and former president of the Max Planck Society, was president of OIST from January 2017 to 2022.发育生物学家、曾任马克斯·普朗克学会主席的彼得·格鲁斯于 2017 年 1 月至 2022 年担任 OIST 校长。
• Gruss oversaw the award of the university's first doctorates in 2018 and received Japan's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, in 2023.格鲁斯任内学校于 2018 年授予首批博士学位，他本人于 2023 年获授日本旭日重光章。
• Daniel Zajfman, formerly president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, was serving as interim president in 2026.曾任魏茨曼科学研究所所长的丹尼尔·扎伊夫曼于 2026 年担任临时校长。
• Steven Chu, who shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, spoke at the first commencement in 2018, when fourteen graduates received their doctorates.1997 年诺贝尔物理学奖得主朱棣文在 2018 年首届毕业典礼上致辞，当年共有 14 名毕业生获得博士学位。
• The university's Board of Governors, appointed in 2004, has overseen the institution from its planning stage through its accreditation and expansion.学校理事会于 2004 年设立，从筹建阶段起一直监督学校直至获得认证与规模扩张。