About University of Tokyo Online Internship Program
The University of Tokyo Research Internship Program (UTRIP) is a short-term internship program for students majoring in natural science and other relevant fields. The program will provide students with an opportunity to gain the experience of “real graduate-school life” or “research-centered life.”
UTRIP is a gateway to experience academic life at UTokyo and develop skills needed for pursuing an advanced degree in the future. The program will be an excellent occasion for students to test their aptitude for rigorous graduate study in the natural sciences.
In April, 2021, we launched UTRIP Online as a pilot program looking ahead to the transition from the “With-Corona” era, to the “Post-Corona” era. Participants worked closely with leading researchers of the Graduate School of Science (GSS) in UTokyo online.
Cutting edge experiments were conducted remotely and lively discussions were held among the participants, UTokyo students, and faculty members, which offered the participants an outstanding scientific research work experience.
Following several report writing assignments regarding the respective experiments, participants made oral presentations online and submitted final reports on their respective research projects.
Features of University of Tokyo Online Internship Program
- A hands-on short term remote research program.
- Participants will have an opportunity to get involved in research at the frontier of natural science.
- As part of the program, students will view video lectures and read published research articles pertaining to their projects, and participate in online laboratory meetings with their faculty advisors.
- No participation fee is required.
- Participants who successfully complete the program will be awarded a certificate from the school.
University of Tokyo Online Internship Program Eligibility & Requirements
- Be enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree program, an integrated Bachelor’s-Master’s degree program or a Master’s program at a university outside of Japan.
- Be enrolled in a natural science or related field.
- Be thinking of pursuing long-term career goals in a scientific area.
- Be planning to commit to the entire program period.
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University of Tokyo Online Internship Program Requirements
- To have a secure internet connection to conduct research remotely and to communicate interactively online.
- To participate in the project for the full program period.
- To attend all academic events scheduled over the UTRIP Online program.
- To submit written research reports within the designated submission periods.
- To give an oral presentation on the scheduled day.
Application procedure
All required documents need to be uploaded onto the designated online application form for the laboratory of your choice. Please contact us if you have any technical difficulties.
Application information:
Prior to submitting your application, make sure to review the Program Details & Research Descriptions to identify if the hosting lab and its research project fits your academic background and interests.
Personal information:
You are required to state general information in your profile. As we rely mainly on email to communicate with all applicants, please include a current email address on your application and be sure to promptly respond to all correspondence. Please also note that the Corresponding Address will be used for scheduling the real-time meetings and sending a certificate of completion.
Personal statement:
Address the following topics in 700 – 1000 words in total: Your reasons for selecting this research project, and what you hope to gain from this experience What makes you qualified for the particular research project, briefly highlighting your skills and experience when they are specifically required by the faculty member, or when they appear to be helpful to conduct research in the laboratory. Whether you are thinking of applying to the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo after you graduate from your current university, citing your reasons.
Educational background and qualifications:
Resume / CV This should include your photo and in-depth descriptions of any work experience, responsibilities or projects relevant to the research topic on which you wish to work during the program. It should also list recent schools attended (high school, university, etc.) together with year/month of entrance and completion for each, and briefly explain courses you have taken or will take as well as prizes and awards relevant to the research topic, if you have any.
GPA:
Applicants whose universities provide official GPA scores must write those scores. If your university does not provide an official GPA score, you are required to calculate your own GPA and then describe the calculation in the “Notes” section.
English language qualifications:
Submitting TOEFL test scores or an equivalent English proficiency test (such as IELTS) is preferable if English is not your first language but it is not mandatory. Test scores that have already expired are accepted, as long as the applicant is still able to produce proof of the test scores upon request by the UTRIP office.
Supporting documents:
Scanned copy of academic transcript Submit a scanned copy of the official university transcript(s). A transcript must include:
- Your name
- University name
- Year of admission
- List of courses completed (Course titles, grades and credits should be included)
- Legend (An official explanation of the grading system provided by the university; if this is not included in the official transcript, you may scan in together a separate official document to supplement your transcript.)
If your university doesn’t issue an English version of your transcript, please arrange an English translation of its contents, such as program type, program length, course titles you’ve taken, and submit the translation together with the original version of the transcript. At the top of the translation, the translator’s name and written oath declaring the correctness of the translation is necessary.
Recommender information:
Letter of recommendation issued by a professor is not necessarily required for UTRIP Online. If you have a letter of recommendation at hand, you can upload it together with the recommender’s information.
Online Application Form
Make sure that you have all the above information and materials ready at hand when you submit your online application. There are no “save” functions on this application system.
Note that each applicant is responsible for the completeness of his or her own application. We cannot respond to any inquiries asking whether any specific applications submitted on our system have been judged to be valid.
Selection
Selection will be made based on all of your submitted documents. Selected students will receive a notification from the UTRIP office, asking them to confirm their willingness to participate in the UTRIP Online program by a specified date. Make sure that you check your emails regularly, and that emails from are not treated as spam by your spam filter.
