Institute of Innovative Research (IIR), Tokyo Institute of Technology

IIR’s mission encompasses the creation of new research areas, advance research that fuses differing fields, solve problems pertaining to human society, and reinforce its industry-academia alliance as well as the enhancement of the future industrial s well as the enhancement of the future industrial platform for applying the wisdom of science and technology to new values added and solving social and industrial issues, while training the personnel who will take charge of academia and industry of the future. IIR consists of multiple research labs, research centers, and research units that are spread across both the Suzukakedai and Ookayama campuses, where cutting edge research covering a variety of fields including life sciences, materials, energy, electronic information, machinery, and disaster-prevention is progressing.We value the free-flowing ideas of our researchers, and by organic cooperation between and among research labs, centers, and units, we aim to contribute to the society through new intellectual creations. As an organization engaged in science and technology creations, covering basic to applied technology, we conduct innovative researches to produce results that contribute to the society and plant the seeds of future industry in response to the increasingly sophisticated needs of the society through the training of high-quality personnel and creative research activities. As part of Tokyo Institute of Technology’s restructuring of its research system, the Institute of Innovate Research (IIR) was newly established on April 1, 2016 with approximately 180 faculty members whose mission is to promote the highest level of research. The mission of the Institute of Innovative Research (IIR) is twofold — to promote active cooperation within and beyond the organization by providing an open research environment, and to continuously improve this environment so that researchers can focus fully on their work and make the most of their abilities. By accomplishing this mission, IIR can create new research areas and new technologies that solve existing problems in society and lay the foundations of future industry. In the long run, IIR aims to become a world-leading innovation center. The IIR is characterized by large-scale research laboratories, medium-sized research centers, and research units that conduct cutting-edge research in small teams. We have expanded our research capabilities under the strong guidance of its first director-general, Kazuya Masu, and his successors Fumio Koyama and Toru Hisabori. The new financial year has started under the lingering cloud and negative impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic, amid which the IIR continues to thrive with 179 full-time faculty members, 11 full-time administrative staff (belonging to the administrative departments), 154 part-time faculty members, 185 part-time staff, and 1,155 supervising students (as of April 1, 2021). As a research organization of a designated national university, we continue to champion basic research, applied research, and development research. In addition, we will promote fundamental research as academia and endorse the activities of the Organization for Fundamental Research to nurture young researchers. Moreover, as part of our research on social issues, we will also contribute to the "Initiatives for Overcoming Disasters Caused by COVID-19," which is being independently pursued by researchers aiming to help society break free of COVID-19. We value three things in managing the IIR. The first core value is freedom. The origin of research lies in the freethinking and intuition of researchers. There are countless examples where the research and interests of a single researcher have yielded results that have shaped history. Even organizations themselves, such as research laboratories, are free to choose the direction in which they go. The second core value is autonomy. In order to conduct research freely and at the same time protect and nurture long-term basic research, it is essential for the organization to be autonomous. In the future, it will be ideal from a strategic point of view to conduct research-related activities as a financially independent research organization. And finally, I hope that our institute will be an organization that delivers smiles continuously — smiles when discovering new facts after a series of experimental failures, smiles when a research project is adopted and when it successfully concludes, smiles when a start-up is launched, smiles when a new horizon emerges from cross-disciplinary discussions, and the smiles when faculty, staff, and students talk with each other (although this may be difficult in the current climate). I do believe that the total sum of these smiles will help in realizing the goal of our institute, which is to bring well-being to society along with the fruits of our research. ...view more