2017 New Year's Greetings

January 5, 29
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Cho Matsunaga Kore
 

Happy New Year to everyone. Thank you for your continued support this year.

This year marks the second year of the third Medium-term Objective plan. Our university aims to be a "globally recognized research university." To this end, we have set four strategic goals, which include strengthening research capabilities, globalizing education and research, industry-academia collaboration, and cultivating highly innovative human resources. We will set evaluation indicators for each strategic goal and work to achieve them. There are no ambiguous evaluation indicators, and most of them have clear numerical targets. These include the number of papers published in the Web of Science (WOS), the amount of external funding acquired through grants-in-aid for scientific research, joint research funds, and contracted research funds, the progress to doctoral programs at graduate schools, international co-authored papers, the number of graduate students sent overseas, and the number of international students accepted. Of course, performance differs by field, so we have asked each department of Institute of Agriculture and Institute of Engineering to set goals. We understand that the steady efforts of Faculty Member in each field will not only contribute to the education and research of our university, but will also benefit the future of each individual Faculty Member.

At the end of last year, the government's budget proposal for fiscal 2017 was finalized. National University Corporation Operating Expenses Grants remained almost flat. Adding the newly established 4.5 billion yen subsidy for promoting the strengthening of national university corporations' functions, the total increased by 2.5 billion yen to 1.097 trillion yen. Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology of Agriculture and Technology's core operating expenses grant also remained almost flat at 5.8 billion yen, an increase of about 10 million yen. In terms of facility maintenance, a budget for earthquake-resistance renovation of the central building of the Koganei Campus had already been allocated in the supplementary budget for fiscal 2016, and further budget for earthquake-resistance renovation of Building 5 of the Fuchu Campus has been allocated in the fiscal 2017 budget.

This will be my sixth New Year's greeting. My six-year term will end in March of this year, and most of Board of Directors members will be replaced. Starting in April, a new executive committee will start under Professor Ohno. Professor Chiba and Professor Misawa will be newly appointed as Deans of the Faculty of Agriculture and Technology. Although there is only a short time left, I would like to work hard until the very end, so I would like to ask for your continued support and conclude my New Year's greeting.