"President's Choice" January 4, 2023
President's Message on the New Year
I Woulu like to extend my best wishes to you all for 2023.
As we reflect on the past year, 2022 was a year full of accomplishments.
Amidst the drastic changes in the world, I indicated the clear direction Chiba University was headed towards our vision, "Chiba University Aspirations," with the goal of "Towards a world preeminent academic institution." Under the Aspirations, we made various efforts to make several achievements.
In August, our university was selected as one of the Synergy Centers of the "Japan Initiative for World-Leading Vaccine Research and Development Centers," funded by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED). We are honored and proud that our university has been highly evaluated as a center of excellence for the national project. Through the project, we aim to contribute to society by researching and developing effective, safe, and secure mucosal vaccines.
In November, our management reform plan with Digital Transformation technologies was chosen for the "National University Management Reform Promotion Project" by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. According to this plan, we are committed to reforming our research, education, and management strategies.
To further accelerate the reform and improvement of our university, we have set four New Year's Resolutions for each category of the "Chiba University Aspirations."
1. A Hub of Global Brain Circulation -Generate and Expand World Leading Research-
Last April, we established the Institute for Advanced Academic Research (IAAR), which supports 20 programs with huge potential to make dramatic progress in each area.We also started the "IAAR Training Ecosystem for Young and Mid-career Researchers" to show young researchers a clear career path. To begin with, we provide more than 150 doctoral students with financial support from government subsidies.We allocated President's 2022 Discretionary Budget to hire postdocs for the assistant professor position at the Center for All Directional Innovation and to run a tenure track system for mid-career researchers. We strategically provide detailed and broad support for our researchers.In addition, the "Nishi-Chiba Well-being Research Park Project" is currently in the works. On the land of about 30,000 square meters, the remains of the Institute of Industrial Science of the University of Tokyo, we plan to build world research hubs for corporate research and development.
2. Nurture Global Talent -Learn from the World, Devote to the World-
Based on the blueprint 2028 for Chiba University Global Education set last March, we are accelerating data-driven education reform.
In 2020, we suspended all studying abroad due to the new coronavirus infection. Students, however, have gradually started going abroad since last year. This year we promote the "ENGINE program" to encourage students to study overseas.
In order to nurture digital talents, we are now preparing to set up new faculty and a doctoral degree program to study data science in April 2024. We have high hopes for the start of the Faculty of Data Science.
3. Strategic and Holistic University Management -Strengthen Operation Foundations-
We will systematically analyze the university further to strengthen our research, education, and management capabilities. We first work on centralized management and visualization of information necessary for managerial judgment. We then build a new system to review and redistribute on-campus resources simply and effectively.
4. Chiba University's Commitment to Society
Last but not least, we will strengthen our public relations activities. We have been posting this "President's Choice" to share our educational and scientific activities on our website. "CHIBADAI NEXT" also highlights our researchers and their research achievements. As a university, we consider it our responsibility to provide the scientifically correct information in an easy-to-understand manner. We continue sharing our efforts and accomplishment to contribute to society.
These are our New Year's Resolutions for 2023. We would like to work closely with the community and the world to make Chiba, the nation, and the world better.
I hope you have an excellent 2023 with us.