About FLOuRISH Institute

Purpose

As a research-based university with a solid partnership base with industry in the arenas of sophisticated research and the development of education, research and innovation talent, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) is actively working to reform itself on the basis of its advanced research capabilities, partnerships with industry, and the track record of developing innovation talent, for the purpose of promoting excellent education and research programs comparable to those of global leading universities.

For Japan to enhance its presence in the international society, it is important that universities, especially national scientific universities, build a brain circulation system as a hub for open innovation and work to reform themselves based on MEXT’s policy for national university reforms by transforming their governance structures and educational programs. Under the President leadership , therefore, TUAT has established a new vision statement that reads: “For a world-leading research university that maximizes human value intelligently and socially based on science.” It thus aims to create future value and strengthen and reform its functions toward fostering highly qualified innovation leaders through advanced research capabilities and academic-industrial collaboration, while planning and implementing an organizational development that helps establish a research support system by improving the treatment of young researchers. To that end, it has expansively reorganized its Innovation Advancement Organization into the Institute for Fostering Leadership to create future value through Outstanding Research, Innovation and Sustainable Higher education (FLOuRISH).

Overview

The FLOuRISH Institute is a special research and education zone free from existing institutional limitations. It engages in the redistribution of internal resources and the reform of the personnel evaluation system by utilizing faculty members of TUAT Institutes. This is a model enterprise for national university reforms and enhanced partnerships with society. Based on actual performance of human resource cultivation at Leading Graduate Schools and WISE Program, FLOuRISH provides an enriched program for graduate school literacy education using its unique innovation leader development program. It also conducts reforms of graduate school education that include the improved treatment of graduate school students based on its own incentive system JIRITSU, and thereby creates a new graduate school environment that simultaneously fosters graduate school students (JIRITSU research fellows and Next generation fellows) as well as young principal investigators (PI) and people responsible for academic-industrial collaboration (Team Education and Research Administrators (TERA)).

At the same time, after being adopted for JST’s Support for Pioneering Research Initiated by the Next Generation (SPRING) program, FLOuRISH launched its fellowship system for SPRING in FY2021 and has been working to promote advanced research, develop a higher entrepreneurial perspective, and foster human resources who can contribute to society.

On the assumption that it is important to learn entrepreneurship—a thought and action element needed to create new value—and maintain high aspirations and motivations regardless of generations, research fields, and job types, we also provide university-wide innovation education programs, including the Science Visionary Leader Program, as we aim to cultivate these people who create innovation.

History

TUAT uniqueness

Track record of developing innovation talent → Deployment of TUAT-style program to society

Cycle of TUAT innovation ecosystem