International Cooperation

We will enhance collaborations based on agreements with key institutes for advanced education and research (mainly overseas), and in cooperation with groups of foreign guest instructors, will utilize these agreements for international education and research programs. We have already obtained informal consent for the agreements with the institutes outlined below.

(1) Formation of Global Material Research Alliances: Collaborations at institutional level will be strengthened with the world's top institutes in the field of materials science and engineering (including: the Max Planck Institute (Germany), the University of Cambridge (UK), the Technical University of Denmark / Riso National Laboratory (Denmark), Northwestern University (USA), the Shanghai JiaoTong University (China), Korea University and the National Institute for Materials Science (Japan)); at the same time, alliances among the above institutes will be formed to promote research-related interactions, particularly among young researchers. Also, excellent researchers will be invited/hired from these institutes. Besides, international researches will be undertaken with guest instructors comprised of notable foreign researchers formed through our 21^st Century COE Program (Phase I).

(2) Formation of Global Clusters of young researchers; "Global Clusters of Young Researchers" will be established within the Center for Advanced Structural and Functional Materials Design Education and Research to foster promising researchers with international competitive capabilities and global perspectives. In these clusters, young researchers from diverse affiliations are to be included (e.g., young foreign researchers invited or hired on the basis of alliance agreements, or doctoral students / young researchers within our COE) in order to encourage improvements through friendly rivalries in an environment of day-to-day international competition, while at the same time promoting
collaborative and combined research activities. Regarding the research space and grants required to promote research, "Key Grants for Young International Researchers" will be provided in accordance with application-based grants competition.