2025 New Year’s greeting by Naoto Ohtake, president and CEO

Science Tokyo President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Naoto Ohtake
January 1, 2025

Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo) successfully set sail on its new journey on October 1, 2024. The smooth integration between Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the subsequent founding of Science Tokyo, would not have been possible without the unity and passion of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and the warm support and advice from countless friends at home and abroad. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to all of you.

As we kick off 2025 together, Science Tokyo is still in a transitional stage. This means we are focused on promoting a shared culture and harmony on our campuses while maintaining our dedication to a better and brighter life, society, and planet. Our town hall meetings, which began last fall to encourage open discussion among all community members, will continue across Ookayama, Yushima and Surugadai, Suzukakedai, Tamachi, and Konodai Campuses. Together with the chief academic officer, executive vice presidents, and two chief integration officers (CItgOs), I will continue to engage in detailed conversations with Schools, Faculties, Graduate Schools, and other important components of our dynamic team. We are listening carefully to the voices of our valued students and those specifically involved in education, research, and healthcare, and will ensure that equal importance is placed on dialogue with domestic and overseas stakeholders.

In its first year of existence, Science Tokyo aims to firmly establish itself as a university for research excellence. To this end, we must clearly communicate to our stakeholders, both on and off campus, why this institution was established, and what it aims to do.

Science Tokyo — as its name suggests — embodies the very essence of science and constantly aims to forge something new. We strive to reconstruct science, engineering, and the medical and dental sciences to create new academic knowledge based on a shared understanding and sustainable use of nature, and an enhanced understanding of people and society. We realize that deepening specializations and creating new knowledge are true to the roots of academia, and expand the possibilities that science can offer. However, complex societal challenges such as carbon neutrality and new or re-emerging infectious diseases no longer allow for the separation of the natural sciences from the social sciences and humanities. A synthesis of knowledge is required. Hence, while encouraging curiosity-driven research, Science Tokyo aims to uncover the potential of convergence science — a collective scientific intelligence that is not merely the sum of different fields, but rather a synergy of disciplines that gives birth to something new.

At the same time, Science Tokyo aspires to be a united and supportive community that nurtures talent capable of leading tomorrow. These future leaders — who refine their intellect and sensitivity through a broad range of academic fields, including the liberal arts — are encouraged to explore the advancement of science, and to share with society the knowledge and resulting value they create. By facilitating an environment of pioneering research and innovative teaching and learning, Science Tokyo inspires these future professionals while pushing the boundaries of scholarly and scientific progress with the creation of new knowledge, academic disciplines, and industries.

As we usher in the new year, I hope to energize and empower this community of shared discovery and creation so that Science Tokyo’s students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends, both new and old, can work together to build the Institute that we all want.

Happy New Year 2025.