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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) on education for sustainable development (ESD) Hyogo‐Kobe, and the contribution of Kobe University as a model case. An attempt to develop and implement a new ESD programme in higher education is also reported.

A brief description of RCE Hyogo‐Kobe, which was approved in 2007, is followed by the description of the contribution of Kobe University to the RCE's starting phase to date and in the near future. The initiative of establishing the RCE as well as the design and implementation of the ESD programme developed through the collaboration of three faculties: the Faculty of Human Development, the Faculty of Letters, and the Faculty of Economics. The programme focuses on students carrying out participatory action research enabled by collaboration with regional stakeholders on ESD and SD.

Interdisciplinary collaboration was found to be essential in creating an innovative education programme in higher education. Activities and projects on ESD that existed earlier played important roles in the initiative, in formation of the network, and in directing RCE activities.

Information from the case study will be useful in the establishment and development of an RCE through the initiative of an institute of higher education.

This study examines the impact of work-to-family conflict (WFC) on depression for employed husbands and wives in Japan, the moderating role of own psychological family involvement in the relationship between WFC and depression, and the moderating role of spouses’ family and job involvement in the relationship between WFC and depression.

We use a matched sample of Japanese employed husbands and wives to examine the relationships between inter-spousal dynamics about work–family conflict and psychological well-being.

We found that (1) the effect of WFC on depression was larger for wives, (2) husbands’ and wives’ own psychological family involvement did not moderate the relationship between WFC and their depression, and (3) spousal family and job involvement operated as a moderator only for husbands. While WFC reduced husbands’ depression when their wives were highly involved in their jobs psychologically and behaviorally, WFC increased husbands’ depression when their wives were highly involved in family at both psychological and behavioral levels.

Employers need to take into account the importance of looking simultaneously at the ways employed husbands and wives work when trying to understand how workplace conditions may be changed to ameliorate psychological well-being for spouses.

This study suggests that an experience of conflict between work and family is likely to deteriorate the psychological well-being for employed husbands and wives in non-Western contexts like Japan. Furthermore, spousal involvements in family and work domains are likely to play moderating roles in the relationship between WFC and depression.