Primate Research Institute
The Primate research Institute (founded in 1967) offers graduate programs leading to the M. Sc. and D. Sc. degrees in the field of primatological science through the Division of Biological Sciences of the Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University. The director of the institute as of April, 2012, is Dr. Hirohisa Hirai.
The Primate Research Institute (PRI) was established in 1967 and has for the past four decades been promoting basic research on primates, including humans. Japan is a special country in terms of the study of nonhuman primates. Unlike all other highly industrialized countries, it has an indigenous species of primate, called the Japanese monkey or Snow monkey. The birth of Primatology in Japan dates back to 1948. Click here to listen to former director Dr. Tetsuro Matsuzawa discuss the history of Japanese primatology and the origins of the PRI.
The PRI aims to understand the Order Primates from a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of ecology, sociology, behavior, cognition, brain sciences, physiology, genetics, genomics, biomedicine, morphology, paleontology, and other aspects of living and fossil species, to ultimately elucidate the origin and evolution of human nature.
The PRI has been contributing to the education of graduate students under the Division of Biological Sciences in the Graduate School of Science. Students enrolled at PRI have the added opportunity of receiving financial support from the AS-HOPE and ITP-HOPE projects, which allow them to go abroad for laboratory training and/or fieldwork.
In 2009, PRI founded a new center, CICASP, which aims to facilitate international collaboration and advanced studies in primatology.