Guidelines on establishing professional graduate schools, drawn up under the Japanese School Education Law, state that the professional graduate schools system aims to train human resources that possess socially specific and advanced professional skills and outstanding abilities. To achieve this goal, professional graduate schools are required to provide more full-time faculty members than those in conventional graduate schools and to employ a considerable number of instructors with practical experience in the business world.

The guidelines also prohibit the faculty members of a professional graduate school from working as full-time faculty in other departments or graduate schools. With regard to teaching methods, the guidelines require professional graduate schools to provide flexible and practical training, and a clear statement of course plans and evaluation criteria, as well as to make efforts toward the continuous improvement of course content and teaching methods. Thus, professional graduate schools need to meet high quality standards in terms of faculty, education methods, and facilities/equipment.