This program has been selected to be a Program for Leading Graduate Schools, an initiative launched in 2011 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. The principal objective of this initiative is to shape outstanding students into leaders with holistic perspectives and strong creative skills who are able to work in leadership roles in industrial, academic, and governmental sectors throughout the world. To achieve this, the program works to enable the reform of graduate-level education in Japan through the establishment and development of degree programs that offer educational and research environments of internationally recognizable standards; these programs are designed to create continuity between master’s and doctoral programs as well as to bring together industrial, academic, and governmental fields.

The Materials Education Program for the Future Leaders in Research, Industry, and Technology is a graduate program at The University of Tokyo operated through collaboration among a number of departments: Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, Materials Engineering, Applied Chemistry, Chemical System Engineering, and Chemistry and Biotechnology at the Graduate School of Engineering; Physics and Chemistry at the Graduate School of Science; and Advanced Materials Science at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences. The Program has been designed to produce doctoral graduates capable of making significant contributions to the sustainable development of society. Program graduates will have strong expertise rooted in their experience of advanced materials science research, and will be able to adopt a holistic approach and flexibility in working across disciplines. They will also have the capacity to apply their knowledge creatively and constructively, and demonstrate breadth of perspective and an appropriately ethical stance.

Students graduating from the Materials Education Program for the Future Leaders in Research, Industry, and Technology will have built advanced expertise and the ability to adopt a globally attuned perspective that allows them to consider a broad range of science and technology, based on a solid platform of integrated materials science. These graduates will be in an ideal position to take the lead in resolving issues faced by human society by driving open innovation in industrial, academic, and governmental fields.