2024 New Year's message

Kazuya Masu
President, Tokyo Tech

January 1, 2024 marks my sixth and final New Year's celebration as the president of Tokyo Tech. Soon after I assumed my position in April 2018, I proposed to the community the Tokyo Tech Commitments, which I believed would guide us to a brighter future. The students, faculty, and staff of the Institute seemed to welcome these commitments — appreciating diversity, embracing collaborative challenges, and taking decisive action — in many of their activities and, despite the various hurdles that were thrust before them, continued to create and innovate together with the broader community. Thanks to their endless energy, firm sense of purpose, and unquenchable desire to forge new paths and value, the chronicles of Tokyo Tech have continued to expand with new encounters, discoveries, and successes. I am both honored and humbled to have been able to share this journey with such competent, unique individuals.

This year, an exciting, new journey begins. In October 2024, Tokyo Tech will merge with Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) to form Institute of Science Tokyo, a completely new university that will boost opportunities for current and future students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders around the globe.

By bringing together the people, traditions, and innovations of Tokyo Tech and TMDU, Institute of Science Tokyo will seek to push the boundaries of creation through collaboration between science and engineering, medicine and dentistry, informatics, liberal arts, humanities, and social sciences. The world has witnessed rapid developments at the intersection of engineering and medicine in recent years, and through our own approach to convergence science, we are eager to open these frontiers of interdisciplinary discovery and creation further. While we aim to educate the next generation of skilled, innovative physicians and engineers with a passion to enhance the human condition, we will also lead collaborations that transcend the conventional train of thought, uncover the unimagined, and inspire our new community and partners to take daring steps towards a better tomorrow.

The integration of the Tokyo Tech and TMDU communities is an enormous challenge that undoubtedly raises feelings of both trepidation and excitement. While exploring potential synergies, we must carefully observe and respect each other's cultures and approaches. During the current transition period, we have already witnessed a dramatic increase in forums and seminars involving Tokyo Tech and TMDU researchers, which have resulted in joint research projects that left organizational borders behind. Increased interactions between student clubs from both universities have been observed. The Institute of Science Tokyo Brand Action! project, a joint initiative involving Tokyo Tech and TMDU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and local community members, is also underway to mold the identity of the new university. This active creation process, which aims to involve as many community members as possible, is a form of innovation in itself.

As we endeavor to build a new university with people who come from different values, beliefs, backgrounds, and environments, we are consistently reminded of the knowledge-rich creativity that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bring to our lives. For several years, Tokyo Tech has dedicated significant amounts of time and resources to promoting DEI within its community, and these efforts continue. After establishing eight new positions for female associate professors or professors in 2022, the Institute did so again in 2023. Constant management reforms aim to diversify performance evaluations for faculty and staff, and to raise DEI awareness among all employees. In April 2024, Tokyo Tech will introduce special quotas for Japanese-speaking prospective female students applying to bachelor's degree programs. Similarly, the Yoshinori Ohsumi Scholarship will include a category dedicated to female students starting from academic year 2024.

Work also continues in other areas to create a more inclusive environment on our campuses. A number of the Institute's cafeterias, including the recently opened Tsubame Terrace, now offer more varied options to ensure that all students, regardless of dietary preferences, find what they need on campus. Tech Tech Nursery on Ookayama Campus has been helping community members with childcare needs since 2017, and a new childcare center is being planned on Suzukakedai Campus for the fall of 2024. The Institute pressed on with the creation of rest spaces for women, private changing booths, multipurpose restrooms, and other new facilities throughout 2023 so that all campusgoers feel safe to focus on their studies, research, and work. This firm emphasis on DEI will continue in 2024 and will form the core of Institute of Science Tokyo.

Humankind has always found ways to utilize new technologies to their advantage, and universities have accepted the crucial responsibility of spreading these benefits to communities both near and far. Today, more than ever, society expects institutions like Tokyo Tech to pool their knowledge and play a central role in creating solutions to environmental degradation, emerging and re-emerging diseases, the declining birthrate and aging population, and other global challenges.

The formation of Institute of Science Tokyo will present a wonderful opportunity to address these challenges more effectively. By uniting seasoned experts and budding innovators from a broad range of fields, we will boost our ability to create responsible, purposeful technology for the benefit of all. As the development of technology continues to accelerate, we will embrace disrupters like generative artificial intelligence and regularly examine our education and research methods, as well as the role and nature of the university itself. And, perhaps most importantly, as we combine our knowledge, creativity, and experience, we will responsibly steward technology so that we can guide its trajectory and create real change.

For almost six years now, I have encouraged the Tokyo Tech community to appreciate diversity, to embrace collaborative challenges, and to take decisive action while striving to adhere to these commitments myself. With the birth of Institute of Science Tokyo, my term as president will come to an end, but it brings me great joy to see the shared efforts of the community coming to fruition. I am confident that the new university will have the ability, vision, and drive to induce science, engineering, and medicine collaborations that offer holistic approaches to human health and wellbeing, create new academic fields yet to be imagined, provide realistic, comprehensive solutions to globally pressing issues, and lead change in an era of revolutionary scientific and technological development.

As we take our first few steps into another calendar year, let us maintain the courage, compassion, and resilience required to take decisive, collective action as we prepare for the founding of Institute of Science Tokyo in October.

Happy New Year 2024.