IRC aims to provide a research centre to nurture various international and interdisciplinary research policies that use the extensive networks of both Osaka University and IAFOR.

It allows students and faculty to take advantage of the existing online and print publications and conference infrastructure provided by IAFOR, as well as develop an online policy analysis and commentary portal exclusively for IRC, which is the OpenAsia website. OSIPP students may attend IAFOR conferences at no cost (sponsored by the organisation).

In addition, the IRC can provide logistical support within OSIPP in collaboration with the OSIPP Support Office (OSO) to host guest lecturers who are invited by the various issue or area-based centres, projects or committees, within OSIPP or individual professors in order to give ad-hoc lectures and offer the visibility they need to attract the right audience.

The global governance course is an interdisciplinary syallabus that aims to provide students with skill sets that are useful outside of the strictly academic milieu by introducing them to the world of policy think tanks, such as Chatham House, CSIS and the Brookings Institution.

In collaboration with IAFOR for the past two years, the course has been able to provide students with the experience of attending, presenting and being challenged in a real international academic conference organized by IAFOR. This experience of an international learning environment is a great opportunity for graduate students to build on what they have learned in lectures and tutorials and to engage in a rigorous academic environment. For Japanese students this is an excellent opportunity to learn to communicate effectively their views in English, and for international students it adds tremendous value to the experience in areas where the university is not yet as strong as it might be. It also helps promote the university and its students to an international audience.

In addition to the real conference experience, the Global Governance course also focuses on training students to write concise analytical pieces on issues in international politics. This not only helps them in their overall writing skills but also helps IRC to build a stock of potentially publishable pieces and nurture ‘in-house’ writers to contribute to the IRC output.

Understanding of the financial pressures on students and the university, the conference fees, lunches and refreshments are sponsored by IAFOR, and so students are able to attend up to eight international conferences a year at no cost.

For the academic year 2016/2017, the global governance course mirrored the conference areas covered and so lectures and coursework within the university was combined with lectures and workshops from scholars from around the world.

Going forward, these sponsored conference attendees, to be known as OSIPP/IRC Junior Research Fellows, will be expected to contribute actively to the conference by helping to organize and present sessions, enhancing their graduate school experience, and working on and towards research and think tank style publications.

The Asian Conference on Security and International Relations (APSec) brings together scholars from around the world to engage in a conference on Human Security, Social Innovation, and Global GAPovernance, and this conference reflected and built upon the curriculum and syllabus offered by OSIPP, and the infrastructure offered by IAFOR, in collaboration with APISA. It also allowed students and faculty a full international but locally based conference experience. Some 150 attendees from around the world attended and the event was a success that will be repeated this year.