We have introduced the FD tem to improve the research instruction ability of our faculty members. Moreover, we plan to disclose the status of each Ph.D. student in terms of his or her education and research to other faculty members besides his or her own supervisor. By incorporating external jury such as ones from industry, we, as a department, will ensure that we are producing researchers capable of responding to the needs of society.
We have established the Fiber Prototype Development and Production Center, which conducts research from the fundamental stage to the development of commercial products. Moreover, we are building an academia-industry collaborative education system using this Center. Another initiative in this area is a long-term internship to research institutes and industry partners in Japan and abroad.
Through regular assessments, we provide a stratified tuition waiver program, which is linked to the RA (Research Assistantship) and TA (Teaching Assistantship) programs.
Postdoctoral fellows' salaries are flexible and based on the fellows' individual achievements. We provide financial assistance to young researchers by implementing an intra-university competitive research grant program as well as an environment where young researchers can concentrate on their research by actively hiring senior technicians who can build prototypes and operate measurement instruments.
Our education and research organization is more flexible than ever, thanks to the reorganization of our mother body, the Faculty of Textile Science & Technology. This flexibility has enabled us to move personnel around the Faculty. The cabinet meeting of the Dean of the Faculty is responsible for the strategy to establish the International Center of Excellence on Fiber Engineering. With advice from bodies such as the Advisory Board, this cabinet determines strategic research areas. Outstanding teaching staff are then hired for these areas through international public competition. In addition, we invite researchers from our international collaborating universities and research institutes.
To promote international collaborative research on fiber engineering, we have signed agreements to exchange students and young researchers with our international collaborating universities and research institutions. We plan to take advantage of these agreements by executing international collaborative research projects on research topics with Ph.D. students and young researchers.
We intend to establish the International Center of Excellence on Fiber Engineering by reorganizing the Institute of High Polymer Research, and since 1999, we have been hosting the biennial International Conferences on Advanced Fiber/Textile Materials (Ueda Forum). We plan to host this and other international conferences on a regular basis. In addition, we provide financial assistance for our members to attend and present at related international conferences. We have already designed a partial training program based on our international collaboration through tri-university collaborations. We plan to expand this initiative to the rest of fiber engineering so that we may establish the international standard for training programs for fiber engineering researchers and engineers.