Message from the Dean

Development on the Aobayama New Campus:
Promoting integrated research and education in bioindustrial science related to food, health and the environment.

Haruki KITAZAWA
Dean, Graduate School of Agricultural Science and Faculty of Agriculture, Tohoku University

The philosophy of Tohoku University is founded on three pillars: Research First, Open Door and Practice-oriented Research. Accordingly, the Graduate School of Agricultural Science and Faculty of Agriculture of Tohoku University provides education and research in bioindustrial science to tackle vital issues related to food, health and the environment. Agricultural science is a discipline that seeks to facilitate coexistence with nature and production, modification and transformation of diverse biological materials essential for human survival. Considering the multi-layered challenges of today’s world, agricultural science is poised to play an increasingly crucial role, both in Japan and on a global scale. Social challenges include building a stable food supply system that includes a scalable growth strategy for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and food biotechnology, whose respective infrastructures are threatened due to declining population and aging of agricultural workers. Moving into the next decades, as the world population approaches 10 billion people, there is a need to secure food production for survival in a society in which people can live happily and healthily until the ripe age of 100 years old. Achieving and sustaining these goals on a global scale requires diligent efforts to augment environmental conservation and coexistence with nature (i.e., advanced adaptive governance of social-ecological systems). In addition, climate change, connected to intensified human development activities, and associated environmental changes and natural disasters are high priority issues for agricultural science. In order to tackle these problems, the Graduate School of Agricultural Science and Faculty of Agriculture, Tohoku University applies sophisticated, basic research related to food, health and the environment, with the notion to create industry from organisms towards the formation of an international academic research center in bioindustrial science. Following a structural reorganization within the graduate school, two majors were formed starting in the 2022 school year: Applied Bioscience major in the agricultural, forestry, and fishery fields, and Agricultural Chemistry major in the biotechnology field. Applied Bioscience consists of four departments (Plant Life Sciences, Agricultural Economics, Animal Life Sciences, Applied Marine Biology), while Agricultural Chemistry consists of two departments (Biochemistry, Food and Natural Products Chemistry), for a total of six departments and four affiliated research centers in the graduate school.

The Field Science Center based in Kawatabi and Onagawa offer the largest experimental facilities in the national university system of Japan (occupying 85% of Tohoku University land). Furthermore, the center has formed a joint research network with adjacent national and public testing and research institutions to develop educational and research programs encompassing a wide range of complex “ecofields” (ecological fields). In addition, our International Education and Research Center for Food and Agricultural Immunology (CFAI), Innovation Center for Future Agricultural Production and Food Industry (ICAF), and Center for Agricultural and Life Sciences using Synchrotron Light (A-Sync) have been established to promote integrative, interdisciplinary research and education both within and across institutions. Through a wide-range of fusion research areas at these centers, we focus on education and research, from the fundamentals of molecular science at the genetic-level to agriculture science related to industrial areas, developing and growing fusion research seeds and organizational cooperation between industry, academia, and international collaborators.

Conveniently situated on the Aobayama New Campus, exiting the south exit of Aobayama Station on the Sendai City Subway, the integrated research building of the Graduate School of Agricultural Science and Faculty of Agriculture is visible at the end of the campus mall, adjacently lined by Aobayama Commons, which is a unified lecture building, library and student services facility. Surrounded by nature, the Aobayama New Campus, attracts highly ambitious domestic and international students, and researchers alike. Our faculty members on the expansive Aobayama campus, together with other Graduate Schools, Faculties, and Research Institutes of Science, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Engineering, are leading advanced educational research at Tohoku University by maximizing efforts to provide an environment in which free ideas and advanced research can be used to solve complex global problems in agriculture.