2014 New Year's Greetings

January 6, 26
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Cho Matsunaga Kore

Happy New Year. Thank you very much for joining us today since the beginning of the year. At the start of the new year of Heisei 26, we will convey our thoughts as a President to everyone and work together to make our university a better university.

This year marks the 140th anniversary of the founding of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology the university, and I feel that bold reforms are needed to carry on the long history and traditions that we have cultivated over the years, and to further enhance education and research, including the interdisciplinary fields of agriculture and engineering, which are the backbone of industry. In particular, the role that universities should play in solving issues related to the survival of humanity and all living things on earth, such as food, environment, and energy issues, which the university is currently focusing on, and in realizing a sustainable society, is becoming very important.

Our university has been energetically engaged in green innovation and life innovation as a university-wide effort to sustain a beautiful planet. As a result, the program has been selected for the Leading Program in Doctoral Education, and a five-year integrated graduate education is provided in the Practical Science Leading Graduate School program that supports green and clean food production through the fusion of agriculture and industry, and a project to send out doctoral human resources who can become innovation leaders into society is steadily promoted. In addition, a tenure-track system has taken root as part of the development of young human resources, and last year, with the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, we hired six tenure-track Associate Professor through a simultaneous public recruitment with a grant for operating expenses. This year, we will be more active than ever in fostering world-class human resources in science and technology, such as supporting young researchers, supporting women, and promoting the employment of foreign researchers. In addition, at the end of last year, we were newly selected as a project to promote the strengthening of global expansion capabilities, and we would like to put more effort into the development of global human resources.

Last year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced the "National University Reform Plan" and urged each university to voluntarily promote reform with a sense of urgency, reaffirming that it will be extremely difficult for national universities to survive in the harsh international community with the traditional way of education, research, and management. The National University Reform Plan sets out the reform policies and measures that should be undertaken in the future in order to ensure and promptly implement the reform of national universities. In this plan, the last three years of the second phase Medium-term Objective and the plan period are positioned as a period of acceleration of reforms, and we will promote globalization, strengthening functions such as innovation creation, and reforming the personnel and payroll systems in a concrete and integrated manner. On top of that, we have made it clear that we will focus on supporting universities that are actively and proactively engaged in reform. As part of the strengthening of the functions of national universities in the operating expense subsidy of the government budget proposal for the 26th fiscal year, our university has been selected as one of the 12 universities that will dramatically enhance world-class education and research activities. What is required by society is the "implementation" of national university reform. We strongly feel that this is an indication of our strong expectations for national universities, and that we need to be determined to steadily implement reforms. Taking this opportunity as an opportunity, we will respond swiftly to the needs of society, the public, and young people who are about to enter university, draw up a scenario for university reform with a medium- to long-term perspective, and implement university-wide globalization and reform based on this scenario, and strengthen its functions.

Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology sets the two-year and multi-month period from the 140th anniversary of the founding of the university this year to the end of the 3rd Medium-term Objective and the end of the 27th fiscal year, which is the transition to the planning period, as the intensive implementation period for globalization and university reform, and sets a concrete long-term outlook for the 10 years until the 150th anniversary of the founding of the university. President Set and clarify the vision "MORE TUAT150". In order to become one of the top 100 universities in the world, we will implement the following initiatives.

● Since its founding, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has been promoting education and research as a university of practical education that is useful in the industrial world, and after 140 years, it has further developed into industry-academia collaboration and has evolved into the promotion of global innovation. Returning to the founding of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, we will promote joint research that causes innovation with the promotion of industry-academia collaboration as an engine and the development of human resources with an emphasis on practical learning who will play an active role in the real world.
●The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's "National University Reform Plan" is not a university crisis, but an opportunity for the future development of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and in particular, the last two years will be used as a period of intensive implementation of reforms to carry out fundamental institutional reforms. We will reform various systems for the effective and efficient implementation of education and research, and implement reforms in organizational development, personnel systems, and financial bases in which executives, faculty and staff work together.

I would like to conclude my New Year's greeting by asking all faculty and staff to work together for the development of the university and society, and to make efforts for globalization and university reform.