Outline

Plan for research activities

1. Goals for Achievement in Research

The G-COE will be centered on research related to “information and electronics”, in which Japan and other Asian countries are the main production bases, “environment and energy”, which requires global participation, and “nanoscale property measurement and nanoscale structure control”, which forms the basis of nanotechnology. The core of the research carried out at the G-COE is expected to have a major impact on the industrial world.

Based on the actual achievements that have contributed to Japanese industry, and with the advantage of having faculty members specializing in all fields and phases of materials science, we aim to implement research that goes beyond existing limits and that has a great impact both in academic and technological senses. We also aim to establish an original concept of materials science by gathering the abilities of the faculty members and their knowledge in the three fields mentioned above and by collecting opinions and requests from the industrial world. The achievements will be put to use in the industrial world through patents.

Through this Program, we will establish a new academic journal on materials science (tentatively named the Asian Journal of Materials) centered on research in Asian countries and will work to advance the status of the journal. Through the above described research activities, we will work to make the G-COE into a world-leading center of materials science research located in Asia.

2. The Plan and its Objectives

With the objective to build international networks and actively spread and exchange information about the research activities within Japan and to overseas, an international forum will be held at the G-COE at least once a year. To support young researchers, we plan to assign a post-doctoral fellow to each of a certain number of assistant professors to conduct research together. For this purpose, foreign post-doctoral researchers who have experience at Japanese and foreign institutions will be actively recruited. In this way, solid international networks that will attract excellent foreign researchers can be effectively built. Apart from holding an international forum, the research activities of the G-COE will be presented on the Internet.

We plan to invite top-ranked researchers from around the world to participate in the international forum. Network building with Western countries and research involving doctoral students will be actively pursued. In addition, the G-COE will strongly promote cooperative research with researchers from other Asian countries. In particular, active personnel exchange will be carried out with such institutions in China, Korea, and Singapore that are known for their world-leading research and that already have a history of cooperative research programs with the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Furthermore, we will actively pursue excellent students from these institutions to enroll into our doctoral course. Among these students, those who make outstanding accomplishments will be actively recruited by academic research institutes in Japan after they receive their doctor's degree. Asian researchers who have received education in Japan and who are known for their good performance in the field of materials science will be invited to join the steering committee to provide opinions on how to build networks in Asian countries and how to internationalize Japanese academic research institutions (for example, Dr. Jinhua Ye of NIMS has been teaching students majoring in materials engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology for four years).

The G-COE will form a steering committee including members from the Japanese industrial world and will hold regular meetings. At the meetings, research activities will be reported and discussed to point out issues concerning the industrial aspects of the research and feedback will be given to the researchers. This method is already well established in the 21st Century COE Program. In addition, the G-COE will consider the opportunity of placing excellent overseas students enrolled in doctoral courses in Japanese industry with the objective of internationalizing the Japanese industrial world.

In the research on nano-level materials, the relevant keywords include electrons, optics, surfaces, domains, self-organization, and thin films; dividing materials science into traditional disciplines such as organic, inorganic, and metallurgical materials does not have much significance. The departments involved in materials science employ a system in which professors and associate professors carry out their research independently. Thus, many young faculty members work on developing new research fields and on integrating the existing ones without being bounded by conventional disciplines. The steering committee of the G-COE is constituted of mostly young faculty members. Many of the members have experience from the industrial world and from studying overseas and have various backgrounds. The members will be divided into three cross-disciplinary groups (i.e., an optoelectronics function development group, an eco-material group, and a nano-probing and nanostructure control group) to hold scheduled meetings and seminars. Under the instructions of the G-COE leader, members of all groups will cooperate and exchange information with each other while reflecting their expertise and experience. In this way, all members will contribute to the working of the G-COE.