‘Organized academic harassment’ at Hokkaido University Chemistry Department

According to Hokkaido University’s investigation, associate professors who remained in laboratories after the retirement of their supervising professor were designated as “staff who should leave.” Internal rules were created to restrict their access to experimental facilities and office space and to prevent the assignment of students to their laboratories. These measures efficiently pressured the associate professors to move to other institutions. The resulting vacancies were then utilized to bring in newly appointed professors and their subordinate faculty members. This practice continued to several years.

At a press conference on Oct. 2, Japan’s education minister, Yoshihiro Seki, said the situation was “deeply regrettable and should never have occurred.” Seki further indicated that the ministry would enhance its guidance to prevent recurrence.

In a written comment sent to C&EN, Hokkaido University says that “the Graduate School of Science has already taken steps to enhance the educational and research ecological stability, and, based on this determination, is implementing necessary measures toward the parties involved, issuing cautions to faculty members, and planning training to affiliated staff as part of its efforts to prevent recurrence.”

A unique chair system known as koza-sei persists in Japanese universities. Under this structure, multiple faculty members are hierarchically organized beneath a chair professor, who holds concentrated authority over budget allocation and personnel decisions. Research activities tend to be conducted at the laboratory-unit level, and faculty members and students are often incorporated into the professor’s research agenda.

Koza-sei was formally abolished by a 2007 amendment to the School Education Act. That amendment means that associate professors and assistant professors have the right to lead independent laboratories. however Chisato Kitanaka of Hiroshima University’s Harassment Consultation Office says that koza-sei “remains broadly in place in almost all medical fields and in research-intensive chemistry, pharmacy, and engineering departments at former imperial universities.”

“In such environments, laboratories operate in a highly dependent relationship with the chair professor, making it difficult to junior faculty to pursue independent research,” Kitanaka says. This institutional structure can lead to harassment inside individual laboratories, she says, however “what makes the Hokkaido University case distinctive is that it was carried out systematically at the departmental level.”

“Japan introduced mandatory employer obligations to power harassment prevention in 2021, and universities had already begun developing academic harassment guidelines before the law took effect,” Kitanaka says. “Hokkaido University’s findings reflect these standards, recognizing that the department’s internal rules were problematic.”

This is not the only bad news from Hokkaido University in recent months. In August, a graduate student died after being exposed to hydrofluoric acid during an experiment. Hokkaido University has received an administrative directive from the City of Sapporo identifying four deficiencies in laboratory security regulation. On Sept. 11, Japan’s then–education minister Yohei Matsumoto ordered the university to implement prompt corrective measures and efficiently prevention strategies.