How to Apply for NIMS-GRA for a Doctoral Program in Japan

2021 was one of the most exhausting years of my academic journey, as I mentioned on the Student Seminar December 2021 page. That same year, I also had to go through the PhD application process via the NIMS Graduate Research Assistantship (NIMS-GRA).

The process was almost identical to my Master’s application: the most important requirement was a valid English proficiency certificate. Only after that could I move forward with the NIMS-GRA application itself.

The Advantage of Staying in the Same Lab

Ideally, the first step is contacting a prospective supervisor. But since I’d already planned to continue with the same supervisor from my Master’s, I got to “skip” that step.

Documentation was also a bit easier — one recommendation letter could be written directly by my supervisor. That was different from my Master’s application, where I had to request recommendations from my undergraduate advisor and another faculty member I’d worked with at ITB.

A small tip if you’re considering further studies: keep your communication with professors alive. A good relationship makes recommendation letters much easier to get, and along the way you pick up genuinely valuable academic guidance too.

The Hardest Part: Writing the PhD Research Proposal

If the documents were relatively easy, writing the PhD research proposal was the opposite. My first draft felt unrealistic and overly ambitious, so my supervisor suggested I rethink the approach entirely.

The revision process ate up a lot of time and energy. Fortunately, my supervisor was patient enough to guide me until the plan was solid enough to submit.

From Document Screening to Entrance Exam

After passing NIMS’s document screening, I prepared additional documents for the University of Tsukuba. Then came entrance exam day — presenting my Master’s research results and PhD research plan in a tight 15-minute window.

The Irony: A Plan That Never Actually Happened

Here’s the funny part — once I officially became a PhD student, the research plan I’d written was never carried out at all. My research topic shifted completely, landing somewhere far from what I’d originally proposed.

I learned from this that research rarely goes exactly as planned. What matters is staying flexible, pushing through, and finishing on time.

Graduation Requirement: Three Papers in Three Years

The NIMS-GRA program has a demanding graduation requirement: a minimum of three first-author papers within three years.

Thankfully, I exceeded that target — three journals in three years as a PhD student, for a total of four first-author papers across five years of study (Master’s + PhD).