The Tohoku region of Japan has long been known for its rich and distinctive culture. Historically referred to as Michinoku, or “the distant land,” it has developed unique traditions that continue to attract people from around the world. At the same time, the region faces pressing challenges, including population decline, rapid aging, economic stagnation, and ongoing recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake. These issues are not unique to the region and are likely to emerge worldwide, making their resolution globally significant.

The seven national universities in the Tohoku region—Tohoku University, Hirosaki University, Iwate University, Akita University, Yamagata University, Fukushima University, and Miyagi University of Education—have established a strong collaborative framework to address these complex challenges through innovative research and education.

TI-FRIS is a consortium led by Tohoku University that brings together seven universities to cultivate researchers who demonstrate interdisciplinarity, internationality, and sociability. It promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, supports international research, and advances the social implementation of research outcomes while developing transferable skills. The program aims to nurture leaders who advance interdisciplinary research, global collaboration, and socially impactful innovation.

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).

Hirosaki University, a participant in this program, has introduced a tenure-track system and a cross-appointment system. As part of its efforts to foster researchers, we actively promote interdisciplinary research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, international researcher exchanges—such as supporting young faculty members’ overseas travel and inviting visiting researchers from abroad—and the formation of networks among young researchers. Our university is also focusing on creating mechanisms to return research outcomes to society through collaboration with industry and entrepreneurship. In addition, it is working to develop and enhance research support staff, promote the shared use of research facilities and equipment, and implement peer reviews among faculty members based on university-wide evaluation criteria. We have established a personnel evaluation system that emphasizes international assessment criteria, aiming to further improve research capabilities and ensure international competitiveness.

Furthermore, Hirosaki university will promote this program in collaboration with research institutions and companies such as Fukushima Medical University, Fuji Electric Co., Ltd., and Interprotein Corporation.

We aim to expand these achievements—including the development of young researchers, the evaluation system, and collaboration with external organizations—across all participating institutions, with the goal of establishing a system to cultivate world-class researchers who possess interdisciplinary, international, and social competencies.

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, Chiang Mai University, Rinnai 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.

At Fukushima University, which is participating in this program, the university has traditionally been organized into separate educational units (Undergraduate and Programs) and research units (Departments). The departments serve as the foundation for faculty members’ day-to-day research activities. Additionally, through collaboration across multiple departments, research collaboration with other universities, and research projects addressing the needs of the local community, the university fosters the development of researchers and strives to maintain and enhance the quality of its research. Activities such as research projects within academic departments have institutionalized a cycle that begins with securing external competitive research funding through internal competitive grants and leads to the publication of papers. In addition, regarding the Overseas Researcher Program—which aims to allow young researchers to devote themselves to research in their respective fields and enhance their research capabilities—nine researchers have been dispatched over the past 10 years, and their research is progressing smoothly through collaboration with researchers at the host institutions abroad.

In addition to these systems for nurturing young researchers, we will promote talent development through this program to cultivate world-class researchers who possess interdisciplinary, internationality, and sociability.

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.