About GSFS

Student engrossed in experiment

State-of-the-art classroom

Kashiwa Library is open to 9 p.m.

TD Promenade

Tokatsu Techno Plaza

Graduate School of Frontier Sciences PROSPECTUS

About GSFS

The Graduate School of Frontier Sciences(GSFS) is an independent school for Master and Doctoral students that was established through comprehensive cooperation of all existing departments of the University of Tokyo. It is made up of the Division of Transdisciplinary Sciences, the Division of Biosciences, the Division of Environmental Studies, and the Department of Computational Biology. All of them share the mission of solving the challenging problems facing humankind through the pursuit of education and research on the frontiers derived from established disciplines. This undertaking is courageously carried out using transdisciplinary approaches in which the school's departments are organized to cover a broad cross-section of research topics, under the leadership of diversely experienced faculty members from not only the University of Tokyo, but also other research and educational institutions around the world. More than 4,700 students have completed the school's program, and about 1,400 students are currently enrolled in its departments.

Milestones

Apr 1998		Graduate School of Frontier Sciences founded.
Apr 1999		Student enrollment begins.
Mar 2001		Bioscience Building constructed.
Mar 2002		Phase 1 of Transdisciplinary Sciences Building construction ends.
Apr 2003		Department of Computational Biology established.
Sep 2003		Second construction phase for Transdisciplinary Sciences Building concludes.
Dec 2003		Transdisciplinary Sciences Laboratory constructed.
Apr 2004		Department of Medical Genome Sciences launched.
Oct 2004		Kashiwa Research Complex constructed.
Apr 2005		Research Center for Total Life Health and Sports Sciences established.
Mar 2006		Construction of Environmental Studies Building finishes.
Apr 2008		Department of Ocean Technology, Policy, and Environment established.
		Center for Omics and Bioinformatics established.
		Department of Frontier Informatics moved to Graduate School of Engineering.
Apr 2009		Bioimaging Center established.
Apr 2011		Functional Proteomics Center established.
Dec 2011		TJCC(Todai-JAXA Center for Composites) established.

Tripolar Structure

The Hongo Campus focuses on traditional studies in specialized fields and on intrinsic development of those areas, while the mission of the Komaba Campus is to pursue interdisciplinary education and research. In contrast, the goal of the Kashiwa Campus is to pursue "intellectual adventure" by going back to the basics of existing disciplines and interlacing them into a transdisciplinary synthesis of education and research. The addition of Kashiwa Campus to the alliance formed by its sister campuses completes the University of Tokyo's vision for a tripolar structure.

Operating as a new stronghold for pioneering education and research, the Kashiwa Campus pursues intellectual adventure and the creation of new academic fields through graduate-level education and research grounded on a fusion of disciplines at different states of maturity.

In addition to functioning as the university's base for the first half of undergraduate studies, the Komaba Campus engages in interdisciplinary education and research at the second half of undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the specified areas based on interaction with other disciplines and the world outside the campus.

Serving as the linchpin of the tripolar formation, the Hongo Campus undertakes education and research in traditional disciplines at the second half of undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Campus Life

The Kashiwa Campus is home to Kashiwa Library, which offers a variety of facilities for student use, including a spacious reading room and a media hall where all sorts of lectures and presentations are held. The campus is being further enhanced through the construction of other buildings, including a new welfare facility at Kashiwa Campus, and accommodations and sport facilities at Kashiwa II Campus. Moreover, the Tsukuba Express Line has increased its number of daily runs, and the area around Kashiwanoha Campus Station is being developed at a steady pace. These advances in infrastructural buildup are guaranteed to increase the appeal of the Kashiwa Campus district as a center of education and research that forms a vertex of the University of Tokyo’s tripolar structure.

GSFS Collaboration with Industry and the Community

The spirit of transdisciplinarity is a driving force in new industry creation and urban revitalization based on collaboration between the private sector and academia. Tokatsu Techno Plaza and Todai Kashiwa Venture Plaza, both located next to the Kashiwa Campus, provide venues where venture firms engage in R&D based on university-discovered business seeds.
In 2005, the Kashiwa Campus district was designated as a model zone under the tenth urban revitalization project, “Promotion of Urban Revitalization through University- Community Partnerships.” Also, Kashiwa Campus teamed up with the Chiba Prefecture government, Chiba University, and other partners to launch the Kashiwanoha International Campus Town Initiative in 2006. This initiative seeks to develop a healthy, environmentally friendly urban environment through various community pilot projects, including on-demand bus service and Totsubo-Gyms.

Kashiwa International Campus Project

Kashiwa Campus and the surrounding area have been positioned as the international campus of the University of Tokyo because they offer tremendous potential for the design and creation of an innovative environment for international collaboration and exchange. This unique potential, not found at the Hongo and Komaba campuses, is being fully exploited through close coordination between GSFS and other Kashiwa Campus divisions in order to realize the formation of an international campus city at Kashiwa. In particular, the project aims to establish a cosmopolitan environment and foster internationally minded leaders who can produce results in multicultural settings. In order to achieve this goal, the members of Kashiwa Campus are pursuing various community development efforts that involve cooperation with businesses and local research/educational institutions. At the same time, the project is seeking to make a Kashiwa Campus a globally appealing center of research by using transdisciplinary research as a tool for accelerating the creation of new disciplines, and by sharing the products of that research with the international community.

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