Message from the Director

The Institute for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB), Kyoto University, is a new research institute established on April 1, 2026. Ever since the days of the Primate Research Institute, we have consistently aimed to answer the question, “What is a human being?” or “What makes us human?” Human behavioral characteristics include positive aspects such as the ability to use language, develop various tools, and possess advanced cognitive functions that allow us to understand the thoughts of others. On the other hand, there are negative aspects, such as killing our own kind in war, deceiving others, and destroying nature. We will promote experimental research elucidating the evolutionary origins of these human behavioral characteristics. Furthermore, our new institute will promote—as a new pillar of our missions—biomedical research that addresses today’s societal issues caused by individual development and aging, psychiatric and neurological disorders, and infectious diseases. Such research is difficult to conduct without using nonhuman primates that have nervous and immune systems similar to those of humans, and have long lifespans. Furthermore, we aim to conduct research that incorporates perspectives from evolution and biology, unlike conventional medical  research. For example, we expect to be able to develop research from new perspectives, such as whether a sense of time—past, present, and future—is important for affective disorders, or whether infectious diseases can be understood from the perspective of co-evolution of humans, monkeys, and viruses.
Our strengths lie in our world-class nonhuman primate resources and the knowledge and experience in nonhuman primate research cultivated over 50 years. We maintain a collection of over 1,200 nonhuman primates—including Japanese macaques, rhesus macaques, chimpanzees, and common marmosets—as well as about 15,000 skeletal specimens and more than 6,000 molecular biological samples, all of which are utilized by many researchers both in Japan and abroad. We will leverage these resources to promote various international collaborative research projects through partnerships with research institutions in countries such as Germany and the United States.
The Institute’s English acronym is EHUB, derived from “Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior.” We are fully committed to becoming a HUB for Evolutionary research, and we sincerely appreciate your support.

 

 

Katsuki Nakamura
Director
Institute for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior, Kyoto University
April 1, 2026