The University of Aizu
--A Leading Edge University of the 21st Century

Shoichi Noguchi, President

The 21st century offers us an opportunity to build a prosperous society with the many benefits of advanced information technology. If all of us in Japan and throughout the world are truly to benefit from this unprecedented opportunity, some important preconditions must be met.

There are two basic issues that have to be addressed. The first is the general need to research and develop leading technologies that will support a highly advanced information society, in particular, the information technology centered on the important new computer and networking sciences. The second is the need to evolve new social institutions and a set of new social ethics that are conducive to the creation the new society.

It goes without saying that the solutions to these two basic issues must be grounded in a concept based on a global perspective.

The University of Aizu was established with a mission to contribute to the resolution of the most important tasks of the 21st century, through research and development in computers and computer networking.

The University of Aizu is composed of a single school of computer science and engineering. It boasts a world class level in its field and brings to its international research and educational activities a faculty fully half of whose members have a multinational background themselves. In fact, it enjoys a standing as an international engineering university unparalleled in Japan.

In April 1997, the university inaugurated a graduate school, awarding master of science degrees, and is in the process of establishing a doctoral program to start in April 1999 with two Graduate Departments. (Information Systems and Computer Systems.) With this program in place, it is sure that the university will have reinforced its position as a first rank research and development institution as well as a leading international university.

The basic principles of education at the University of Aizu may be summed up as follows:

1. Research and development in computers and networking that is leading edge both nationally and globally.
2. Computer education in the undergraduate and graduate schools that is first rank for an international university.
3. The establishment of a new cooperative framework between academia and industry, on which the pursuit of research and development activities will be based.