Grants and Writing Resources for Ritsumeikan University

Ritsumeikan's student formula team, RITSUMEI RACING, won the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association Chairman's Award at the 2026 Formula SAE Japan, held August 2 to 7 at Aichi Sky Expo. Students design, build and race the car. After a major redesign this year, the team placed 13th overall in the internal-combustion class, with ninth-place finishes in autocross and skidpad. Its project leader, a third-year science and engineering student, says the team will aim higher next year with the data it gathered.

Money for Conferences and Journal Papers

Graduate students who attend or present at an academic meeting can claim the Student Academic Conference Scholarship (学生学会奨学金). The rates are flat: 5,000 yen to attend online, 10,000 yen to attend in person, 30,000 yen to present in person in Japan and 100,000 yen to present in person abroad. Doctoral students can claim more awards a year than master's students. Payments go in order of application, so students plan which meeting to use it on. JSPS Research Fellows and RARA Student Fellows can't apply.

For papers in other languages, the foreign-language paper submission support program pays up to 50,000 yen per paper toward proofreading or translation and up to 50,000 yen toward submission, open-access or conference fees. A student who claims both for the same paper can receive up to 100,000 yen, once per fiscal year. Enrolled graduate students in regular programs can apply; students on leave can't.

Research Prizes and Doctoral Fellowships

Two donor-funded awards recognize graduate research. The Haritake Mukumoto Research Encouragement Award, set up in fiscal 2022 with a gift from a 1963 science and engineering graduate, recognizes master's students in the Graduate School of Science and Engineering and aims to keep them in research through a doctorate. Five second-year master's students received it in September 2026. In law, the Hirai Kaichiro Research Encouragement Award has gone to graduate students in the Graduate School of Law and the Law School since 2006. Five more received it in May 2026, bringing the total to 104.

Doctoral students can apply to join the RARA Student Fellows, a program of the Ritsumeikan Advanced Research Academy that pays a research stipend of 185,000 yen a month and pairs specialist study with work alongside researchers from other fields. The same office lists the university's graduate financial support, including research scholarships in S, A and B grades for students with strong research records and grants for study groups that draw from more than one graduate school.

Undergraduate Scholarships and Thesis Prizes

The Saionji Memorial Scholarship rewards undergraduates for their grades each semester. It pays 150,000 yen a semester in colleges such as Law, Letters and Economics, and 300,000 yen a semester in colleges such as Science and Engineering, Life Sciences and Global Liberal Arts. Each college's faculty recommends recipients in order of merit.

The Hirai Kaichiro Outstanding Thesis Award honors undergraduate work in the Faculty of Law. In its third round, for fiscal 2025, four fourth-year law students received it: one gold, two silver and one bronze.

Writing Tutors and Theses

Ritsumeikan Writing Support opened in April 2021 and works with undergraduates on reports and the groundwork for graduation theses. Tutors are trained graduate students and specialist staff. Sessions run about 40 minutes, in the Gakuji-kan on the Kinugasa Campus or over Zoom, and come in three forms: Japanese writing, English writing discussed in Japanese, and English writing discussed in English. The usage guide says tutors talk through planning, outlines, wording and citation formats with the writer, with the aim of building the student's writing ability. It lists direct correction of grammar and expression, and translation, among requests the room may not take on.

The library's theses and dissertations page explains where finished work goes. Doctoral dissertations appear in full text in R-Cube, the Ritsumeikan research repository, and most are also held in print for reading on site. Enrolled students may read master's theses whose authors have consented, with a supervisor's approval. For graduation theses, the library refers students to faculty offices.

A thesis in English or a paper bound for an overseas journal still needs a last pass for grammar, consistency and format, and our editors can give it one. See our Ritsumeikan University dissertation and thesis editing and Ritsumeikan University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• ESL Academic Writing: Overcoming Common Grammar Habits
• From Dissertation to Publication: The Final Scholarly Synthesis
• Writing the Abstract and Title: First Impressions Matter