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This article analyzes a recent initiative of Japan's Ministry of Education, which aims to internationalize higher education in Japan. The large-investment project 'Top Global University Project' (TGUP) has emerged to create globally oriented universities, to increase the role of foreign languages in higher education, and to foster global human resources. The TGUP identifies 37 universities: 13 as 'top global universities' intended to compete in the top 100 university world rankings and 24 'global traction universities' intended to lead the internationalization of higher education in Japan. Despite the substantial funding behind this initiative, little research has been conducted to evaluate the potential impact of this policy on language planning in higher education in Japan. This paper addresses this gap in its exploration of the TGUP, including key changes from previous internationalization policies. It then presents an analysis of publicly available documents regarding the policy, collected from all 37 of the participant universities. Findings indicate a positive departure from older policy trends and the emergence of flexible, unique forms of English language education in Japan's universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study scrutinised the experiences of intercultural relationship development between international and domestic students at two Japanese private universities, which have contrastive degrees of commitment to internationalisation in regard to stated vision, curriculum, international student enrolment and languages of instruction. Kudo et al.'s (Higher Education, 77(3), 473–489, 2019) three-stage ecological and person-in-context conceptual framework was adopted to gain insight into the roles of institutional internationalisation and personal agency in intercultural relationship development. A thematic analysis of interview data from 32 students (14 domestics, 18 internationals) revealed that institutional internationalisation may play a relatively small role in promoting intercultural relationship development compared to students' agency. A detailed examination of the associations between three forms of agency (i.e. situated, cosmopolitan and creative) and three relational stages (i.e. interactivity, reciprocity and unity) led to the identification of cosmopolitan agency as a meaningful hallmark of intercultural relationship development. These findings call for future research aimed at identifying the environmental and individual conditions that are most conducive to the cultivation of cosmopolitan agency in both international and domestic students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ongoing struggle of leading Japanese universities to elevate their positions in world rankings, and the perceived necessity of Japanese higher education to internationalize in order to achieve more favourable international recognition. The author discusses structural difficulties inherent in Japanese universities in establishing effective approaches for internationalization. Recognition of the necessity to pursue internationalization as seriously as the rest of the world is still very limited among Japanese universities. At the same time, quite different agendas are often implemented under the umbrella term 'internationalization', rendering the policy orientation vague. Immediate and practical approaches to changing the status quo in terms of global prestige and recognition among universities, academics and students include the suggestion that universities themselves should take a more active role in increasing opportunities for international exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]