Welcome
At a meeting in May 2006, The University of Tokyo President Komiyama and Yale University President Levin agreed to establish a University of Tokyo laboratory within Yale, and in September 2007, The Todai-Yale Initiative was created as a university-wide center.
In the charter of The University of Tokyo, the university's mission is defined as becoming the "world's University of Tokyo" with the purpose of serving the common good of global society. In order to realise this goal, The University of Tokyo is putting its efforts into promoting internationalisation, which we are implementing by strengthening relations with other top class global universities and research institutions and by proceeding with the establishment of overseas centers.
Overseas centers are divided into two types: Liaison Offices, the aims of which include carrying out activities to acquire talented students from host countries, promoting relations with educational and research institutions, and strengthening alumni organisations; and Overseas Laboratories, which carry out research activities. Overseas Laboratories are research facilities established abroad by The University of Tokyo, at which faculty from this university engage in education and research. To date, there have been examples of such facilities at the faculty level, but the purpose of this center is to act as a university-wide overseas laboratory, constantly engaging in educational and research activities with the cooperation of multiple departments, contributing to academic exchange and the construction of networks of researchers and improving the international scholarly presence of this university.
The Todai-Yale Initiative, established by The University of Tokyo as our first overseas laboratory, was created as a laboratory of the social sciences and humanities for research on or related to Japan in Yale University, to host researchers dispatched on rotation from various departments of The University of Tokyo to provide lectures, symposia and seminars on Japan Studies in the fields of social science and the humanities, and is structured to support collaborative research with Yale researchers. While providing a stimulus to Japanese Studies in America and also to the many University of Tokyo faculty in Japan engaged in research in Japanese Studies and research related to Japan generally, I sincerely hope that in the future this will prove to be an important center for the internationalisation of The University of Tokyo and the spread of Japanese Studies.
