TIT, TMDU to merge in FY24

The Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Medical and Dental University announced plans to merge by the end of scal 2024 at a press conference in Tokyo on Oct. 14. e merged institution will conduct interdisciplinary research in elds such as medicine and engineering, aiming to gain recognition as a “research university of international prominence,” which would make it eligible for government funding worth tens of billions of yen each year.

Students will be invited to submit suggestions for the name of the new institution, which is expected to be decided in the near future.

In the initial phase of the merger, no changes will be made to the institutions’ current academic degrees, educational curriculums, quotas and entrance exams.

According to the universities, the mission of the new institution includes “developing ‘convergence science’ based on comprehensive knowledge that can be obtained by integrating academic

elds such as science and engineering, medicine and dentistry and art and science, aiming to tackle various social issues” and “establishing a facility for the development of human resources and the creation of knowledge that is open to the world.”

e two universities announced the start of merger talks in August. Two

proposals considered involved operating the universities under the management of one corporation or becoming one university under the management of a single corporation.

e latter option was adopted because of the anticipated synergistic e ects of collaboration among academics in the

elds of medicine, dentistry, science and engineering. It also provides an opportunity to build an organization from the ground up that can take on challenges without fear of failure, and without being bound by constraints inherited from the predecessor institutions.

e government plans to provide several

tens of billions of yen per year to universities recognized as outstanding learning institutions. A ¥10 trillion investment fund will be utilized to nance the initiative, with the fund expected to generate returns of about ¥300 billion a year.

e government will seek applications for funding from the end of the year through spring 2023, select eligible universities before the end of scal 2023 and begin providing nancial assistance in scal 2024.

Tokyo Tech and TMDU plan to le an application for nancial support on the basis that the merger will be completed.

Tokyo Tech has six departments and about 10,000 students. TMDU has two departments and about 3,000 students.

UNIV. OF TOKYO 39TH IN THE WORLD

LONDON — e University of Tokyo was 39th and Kyoto University was 68th in the World University Rankings 2023 released Oct. 12 by the British education magazine Times Higher Education (THE).

ey were the only Japanese universities ranked within the top 100, but both saw their position drop from the previous year. e University of Tokyo was 35th on the 2022 list and Kyoto University was 61st.

e University of Oxford was No. 1 for the seventh consecutive year, and Harvard University came second. U.S. and British schools occupied all the top 10 spots, with seven going to American schools.

In Asia, China’s Tsinghua University stayed at 16th, the same as the previous year, making it the highest-ranked in the region.

THE ranked 1,799 schools in 104 countries and regions based on factors such as the educational environment and the number of citations in research papers.

A total of 34 U.S. schools made the top 100, down nine from ve years ago, while the number of Chinese schools increased by ve over the same period, bringing China’s total to seven. (Oct. 15)

Yomiuri Shimbun photos Tokyo Institute of Technology, left, Tokyo Medical and Dental University