The Center for Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research (CEDEP)

The Center for Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research (CEDEP) aims to contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary research field on early development and early childhood education and care (ECEC). The CEDEP is carrying out various research activities to establish a research excellence initiative focused on children who will play a leading role in shaping our future. The projects are as follows: - Collaboration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as research institutes from countries and regions such as China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia for fostering a global network on ECEC research;
- Longitudinal study on relations between early childhood development and the quality of care and education at home and at ECEC settings; the construction of research database; and the development of ECEC quality assessment tools;
- Development of IoT-based information analysis and transmission system, called “Smart ECEC System.” This project is currently intended to develop new technologies for data collection and analysis on various environmental properties in ECEC settings, lifelog on food intake, children’s physical movement and other factors related to early childhood development;
- Research on practical wisdom of early childhood educators and middle-leaders, and the creation of training programs for their professional development;
- Policy proposals based on economics and public policy research on early childhood education and care, and the development of training programs for ECEC administrators;
- Experimental studies on infants’ sleep and physical movement from the standpoint of developmental neuroscience to reveal the mechanism of early childhood development

Collaborative department:
- Graduate School of Medicine, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
- Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies
- Graduate School of Information Science and Technology
- Graduate School of Engineering
- Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences
- Graduate School of Economics
- Institute of Social Science
- Graduate School of Public Policy, Center for Research and Development on Transition from Secondary to Higher Education
- University of Tokyo Sports Science Initiative.
Collaborative research partners:
- Bunkyo City, Benesse Holdings, Inc.
- Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute
- Toyota Motor Corporation
- Nihon Kyodo System Inc.
- Natural Smile Japan, Inc.
- Future Standard Co., Ltd.
- foo.log Inc.

- K. Akita (eds.) A. Yamabe, G. Taga (associate eds.) All Disciplines Lead to Early Childhood Education and Care: Challenge from Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research. University of Tokyo Press; Tokyo, 2016.
- S.Nozawa, Y.Yodogawa, M.Takahashi, T.Endo, & K. Akita. Review of International Research on the Quality of Infant and Toddler Education and Care. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education, the University of Tokyo. Vol.56. pp.399-419. 2017.
- K.Akita, Y.Yodogawa, S.Sagawa, & M. Suzuki. Review of Research on Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education, the University of Tokyo. Vol.56. pp.283-306. 2017.
- The Center for Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research. Research report on "Project for constructing promotion system in early childhood education" in 2016. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology commissioned research.