Approaches | Institute of Global Innovation Research (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology)

Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology’s Capability Enhancement Program – Establishing Strategic Research Teams with the World’s Leading Researchers –

TUAT was selected by the Japanese government as one of the 12 national universities rapidly promoting global research in 2014. In exploiting our advantages in the fields of agriculture and engineering, and as an initiative to enhance our advanced research capabilities as well as to promote the development of the global and innovative human resources in science, we established the Global Innovation Research Organization in June 2014 to further our goals as a world-leading research university. In April 2016, it was reorganized as the Institute of Global Innovation Research (GIR), a new research institution at the graduate school.

At the GIR, we prioritize research in three key areas: “food”, “energy”, and “life science”, which constitute an interdisciplinary area between agriculture and engineering fields. With the aim of creating advanced innovative results for themes with a high social demand in the key areas, the GIR has formed strategic research teams which allow us to conduct cutting-edge research. Strategic research teams welcome the world’s leading researchers as core faculty members for each area and establish a system that enables TUAT researchers and graduate students to conduct cutting-edge research which will boost the number of internationally co-authored papers. In addition, through introducing tenure track and career challenge systems, we are promoting development of young human resources by providing opportunities for them to engage in cutting-edge research to expand research activities.

To further enhance and strengthen our research advanced by the strategic research teams and strive for world-leading research, in April 2020, we established the Global Research Hub (GRH), an international collaborative research center.

At the GRH, we strive to realize the following mission.

Establishment of international collaborative research centers with fund-raising capability
Enhancement of the presence of TUAT through dissemination of outstanding research results
Realization of diversity and inclusion through encouraging and supporting the recruitment of foreign faculty members
Various supports for obtaining external research funds from overseas

April 2025, to simultaneously promote international joint research and strengthen research careers, we will establish ARC Teams with the following aims, thereby further advancing the sophistication of our research activities.

Encourage sabbaticals to strengthen the research careers of TUAT faculty members
Increase the international visibility of our faculty members and promote the authorship of highly cited papers through joint research with prominent overseas researchers
Build partnerships with outstanding overseas research institutions to establish future research hubs and foster international talent mobility and the circulation of researchers

We believe that our mission to solve the global issues on food and energy, performed with the world’s leading researchers, will lead to the globalization of our education and research system, which in turn, will contribute to fortify the university’s capability and to build the foundation for the university system reform.