The Tohoku region of northern Japan is faced with numerous challenges from a declining birth rate to disaster recovery and the need to switch to green energy. These are issues that concern the future of humanity and are deeply connected to the SDGs, and they are shared globally. The seven national universities of the Tohoku region all have their strengths in terms of independent research related to these challenges. They have built strong foundations and boast good track records on education and research in all of these areas.

TI-FRIS aims to foster world-class researchers who will be essential to addressing those challenges. They must be equipped with interdisciplinarity (able to develop interdisciplinary research with researchers in different fields), Internationality (to conduct research through friendly competition with researchers around the world) and social orientation (to work with society to translate research outcomes into social applications).

TI-FRIS is led by Tohoku University, which has been working to foster research talent based on interdisciplinary research. A consortium was formed with fellow universities of the Tohoku region Hirosaki University, Iwate University, Akita University, Yamagata University, Fukushima University, and Miyagi University of Education – all of which possess their own research strengths. This program seeks to harness those advantages and their own characteristic initiatives. In partnership with cooperating research institutions and companies in Japan and worldwide, TI-FRIS provides interdisciplinary researcher exchange, international collaborative research and socially implemented research programs, as well as a basic transferable skills training program. These programs will create a diverse, creative forum to flexibly serve and support the independent growth of researchers. Through these programs, our aim is to develop researchers to lead international collaborative research projects and projects to implement research findings in society.
 

Tohoku University, the lead institution for this program, has achieved world-class research results from the establishment of advanced research institutes, and leads the world in creating new academic fields that bridge existing academic disciplines and driving cross-cutting multidisciplinary research. It has also supported ambitious research projects by young researchers. One such advanced research institute, the Tohoku Initiative for Fostering Global Researchers for Interdisciplinary Sciences (TI-FRIS), is a cross-cutting research organization aiming to create new frontiers in science across all fields through the promotion of research by talented young researchers working in independent research environments and interdisciplinary researcher exchanges. Under the Tohoku Initiative, FRIS contributes its actions and know-how on interdisciplinary research to this program across all participating institutions, while at the same time developing a program that will become a national model, bringing together the respective strengths of each participating institution. In partnership with cooperating research institutions and companies in Japan and worldwide, the initiative is fostering world-class researchers who are equipped with the ability to lead their field globally while carrying out interdisciplinary research with multidisciplinary researchers (interdisciplinarity), the ability to conduct research through friendly competition with researchers around the world (Internationality), and the ability to work with society to translate research outcomes into social applications (society-oriented).

Program partner Hirosaki University, in addition to introducing an annual salary system, a tenure track and cross-appointment system, is promoting international exchanges between researchers and building a network of young researchers through programs to contribute to the development of researchers such as its Program for Overseas Visits by Young Researchers and the Core-to-Core Program. First-rate young and mid-career teaching staff are sent on visits to overseas universities and research institutes. By offering opportunities for collaborative research, the university is supporting the establishment of future international research exchange hubs in a given field. Further, by setting unified assessment criteria across all faculties, an internationally accepted personnel assessment system is being developed, with teaching staff able to peer review one another, international grading criteria set and increasing importance in grading, for example.

Hirosaki University is also rolling out this program in partnership with other research institutions and companies such as Fukushima Medical University, Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. and Interprotein Corporation. These researcher development and assessment systems are intended to build a system for fostering world-class researchers who are equipped with interdisciplinarity, Internationality and are society-oriented. The results of the partnerships with external organizations are to be shared with all participating institutions.

Iwate University, a participant in this program, is focused on improving and globalizing its research capacity and developing the next generation of researchers. This is being achieved through research support grants provided to support increased interdisciplinary research, as well as budget to support the travel costs of young and mid-career staff on long-term international trips to support overseas research in the aim of building networks of international researchers, improving research management skills and developing researchers who will be the core of collaborative research with international partners. There is also a grant for overseas travel by staff (with priority given to those up to age 39) to assist their presentations at international fora and symposia as well as a grant to invite foreign partner researchers to assist with global joint research and global joint research article publication. There is also support for publishing in international academic journals, and grants available to postgraduate students traveling overseas to present their research.

Iwate University is also developing this program in partnership with Lund University, Energy Support Corporation and other research institutions and companies.

These researcher development and assessment systems are intended to build a system for fostering world-class researchers who are equipped with interdisciplinarity, Internationality and are society-oriented. The results of the partnerships with external organizations are to be shared with all participating institutions.

Program partner Akita University has a policy for supporting researchers including an overseas placement program for researchers and a program to boost support for research projects driven by young researchers. It also has an annual salary system, tenure track and cross-appointment system in place and aggressively recruits young teaching staff. In its performance appraisal system, it has inserted a new criterion about international activities in the staff activity section across every department, evaluating performance on factors such as the number of international projects undertaken.

Akita University is engaged in this program in partnership with institutions which conduct research related to resources, old age and other areas of strength at Akita, such as the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, the Japan Petroleum Exploration Company and Stanford University.

The results of the young researcher development, appraisal system and partnerships with external organizations are to be shared with all participating institutions and are intended to build a system for fostering world-class researchers who are equipped with interdisciplinarity, Internationality and a society orientation.

Program partner Yamagata University, in addition to having an annual salary system, tenure track and cross-appointment system in place already, also subsidizes research costs through independent researcher development initiatives, including Step-up Grants for scientific research and the Young Science Researcher Subsidy. It also established the cross-departmental platform Yamagata University Frontier Research Center of Excellence (YU-COE) and supports the platform to reinforce the university’s existing advantages, strengths that it is developing for the future, and the creative research activities of young researchers.

In the course of this program, Yamagata University has partnered with external organizations including Simon Fraser University, Johns Hopkins University and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation.

The results of these researcher subsidies and partnerships with external organizations are to be shared with all participating institutions and are intended to build a system for fostering world-class researchers who are equipped with interdisciplinarity, Internationality and are society-oriented.

As an organization, program partner Fukushima University long ago separated its educational arm (learning and courses) from its research arm (departments). In addition to the ongoing research of faculty staff, the bedrock of departments, the university is developing researchers in order to maintain and improve the standard of research through interdepartmental collaboration, research collaboration with other universities, and research projects based on the needs of the local community. As for research projects and other activities at the department level, a cycle has been established using the university’s competitive research funding that links all the steps from obtaining external competitive research funding to the publication of theses and papers. Under the leadership of the President, the FoR Project has been launched to address local community issues and to bring competition to university research funding by opening it to the public. Regarding the Local/Foreign Researcher Program, in the past decade, 15 researchers have been sent to research institutions abroad and five researchers have been dispatched locally, where their research is proceeding well as they exchange with researchers from their host institutions.

In addition to these young researcher development systems, the capacity building under this program is intended to foster world-class researchers who are equipped with interdisciplinarity, Internationality and society orientation.

Program partner Miyagi University of Education is globally recognized for its pedagogical research and has a strong track record of supporting its own researchers and of partnerships with fellow education-related institutions. Its research harnesses its strengths as a teacher training college, and it has established a “Basic policy to support research activities at the Miyagi University of Education” that prioritizes research aiming to secure external funding. Its research support system that places winning external funding at its heart with the implementation of a “supplement in recognition of science research funding acceptance,” establishment of scientific research funding peer review, setting of priorities for funding research of university education and teacher training unique to a teacher training college, the establishment of a “laboratory for joint or collaborative research between the university and affiliate schools,” as well as the “Wakaba/Aoba Development Plan: policy to support young Miyagi University of Education researchers.”

The results of these researcher subsidy and staff assessment systems are to be shared with all participating institutions, with the goal of building a system to foster world-class researchers who are equipped with interdisciplinarity, Internationality and social conscience.