Tokyo Tech News
Tokyo Tech News
Published: July 10, 2015
Tokyo Tech aims to become one of the world's top 10 research universities by promoting quality education and research. Integral to this goal is internationalization, which is a vital source of future growth and development. In the transforming landscape of the global economy, establishing new fields is essential and can be achieved through international collaborations with leading universities and industry organizations.
EPFL Professor Hannes Bleuler
(Front row from left) Professor Malte Brettel, Ms. Bettina Dinter,
Professors Kikuo Kishimoto and Yukio Takeda,
and Professor Thomas Gries at EPFL
EPFL's Professor Andreas Mortensen, Vice Provost for research
In support of this effort, a delegation of Tokyo Tech and Japanese industry members visited École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and RWTH Aachen University (RWTH) from June 8 to June 12 to promote mutual exchange and research collaboration. Workshops were held at both universities, providing a backdrop for fruitful discussions and sharing of information. Both EPFL and RWTH are actively promoting start-up companies and industry cooperation. As such, presentations were given by faculty as well as start-up company representatives from both universities. Three Japanese companies and nine local subsidiaries in Europe participated in the workshops.
Aachen Professor Malte Brettel
Tokyo Tech is working to develop university-industry collaborations with EPFL and RWTH based on their respective goals and strengths. The Institute is also progressing toward similar collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is hoped that these efforts will lead to new, large-scale endeavors in research and product development driven by cooperation between Tokyo Tech, EPFL, RWTH, and companies in Europe and Japan. Tokyo Tech also has long-established student exchange agreements with both universities and looks forward to expanding these international learning opportunities even further.
EPFL is one of two national science and engineering universities in Switzerland, the other being ETH Zurich. Established in 1869, about 10,000 students are currently enrolled at EPFL. Half of the students and faculty are from outside Switzerland.
EPFL campus
RWTH is the state university of Nordrhein-Westfalen, established in 1870. Over 23,000 of its 42,000 students are studying in the department of engineering, and 10,000 of those students are in mechanical engineering, making it the largest engineering department in Europe.
RWTH Aachen building
Professor Jochen Büchs at his laboratory
This article has been updated to correct a caption on July 24.
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