This research is to present and share a case study and its know-how on achieving a single objective through collaboration by the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering students and the Department of Business Administration, utilizing and complementing each other's expertise.
The methodology is as follows. Fourth- and fifth-year students from both departments participated in the 38th Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Drug Delivery System (DDS) student Research Project Contest "Let's Create Your Laboratory" which competes with essays and online presentations. The students in Chemical mainly developed the product development plan, while the students in Business analyzed the target markets for the product that the students in Chemical consider and name products. The products are "Hahu Hahu Protect" a sunscreen hand cream, "Koroppetai" a mouthwash, and "Colorful Pee" a supplement for cancer detection.
The outcomes are that the two teams were awarded the Grand and Third prizes in the high school division. A team was awarded President's Award in the university student division, and they also elected the students awarded in the National Institute of Technology in 2022. Although the research fields are far apart, it has become clear that joint education can achieve effective results.
This education demonstrates a high degree of originality. At first, this joint education program conducted a fusion of different fields between the Department of Chemical and Business. The second is the research between female researchers, which is relatively rare in KOSEN. Thirdly, it is done between a mixed-gender student group. As a result of joint research by faculty members and students from different fields and of different genders, ideas that could not have been generated by each of them alone have become possible.