About Us
Message from the Dean
Prof. Akinori Ito
Thank you for visiting the website of the School of Engineering, Tohoku University. I am Akinori Ito, Dean of the Graduate School of Engineering and the Faculty of Engineering. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all. .
The Faculty of Engineering at Tohoku University was established in 1919 and has a rich history of more than 100 years of history. At the time of its establishment, it consisted of three departments and 11 courses, and today the Faculty of Engineering is a huge department with five undergraduate departments (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Department of Electrical, Information and Physics Engineering, Department of Applied Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture) and 18 graduate schools. Approximately one-third of all students at Tohoku University belong to the Faculty of Engineering and the Graduate School of Engineering.
The mission of the School of Engineering is education and research on technology to benefit society. In other words, we aim to create innovations to transform society in every field, including manufacturing, social infrastructure, social systems, and information technology, thereby realizing a more affluent and comfortable society. We foster human resources and conduct research and development for this purpose.
Since the Industrial Revolution, innovations have made possible many things previously thought impossible, and our current society is based on such innovations. In particular, the spread of the electricity supply and the telephone network at the end of the 19th century transformed society. Since then, our society has expanded, exchanging more energy, goods, and information, and now seems to be reaching its upper limits. Not only has global warming caused an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, but the limits of our expansionary path have been exposed in many ways, and the coronavirus pandemic has cast a dark shadow over the world. As a result, new social goals, including carbon neutrality, were shared worldwide. Innovation is the only way to overcome this situation and achieve an even better society. To achieve this, engineering is becoming increasingly important in society in the future, starting with digital transformation (DX) and green transformation (GX).
In addition, the third artificial intelligence (AI) boom, which has been rapidly developing since the 2010s, has dramatically increased the performance of AI, and a technological singularity (Singularity), which was only a dream not long ago, is about to be realized, a world in which AI intelligence will surpass human intelligence in all aspects. In such a world, the technologies and skills to master machines and create new value will be the foundation of society. Education and research at the Faculty of Engineering and the Graduate School of Engineering will greatly contribute to human resource and technological development for this purpose.
Along with education and research, industry-academia collaboration has become a major pillar of the university. Tohoku University's School of Engineering focuses on industry-academia collaboration, and the scale of such collaboration is increasing by more than 10% yearly. In particular, through the "Co-Creation Research Center" system, in which corporate research centers are established within the university, the exchange of technology and human resources has begun beyond the boundaries of university and business. In this way, I believe universities will go far beyond being "schools" for faculty and students, and will play a major role as "centers of knowledge" for all people. We will continue to strive for co-creation with society, aiming to become such a center of knowledge.
We hope to provide useful information through the Tohoku University Graduate School of Engineering and School of Engineering website.