Outline

Institute for Research Initiatives

Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) was selected in fiscal 2013 as an institution that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) would support as part of MEXT’s Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities. This was the context in which NAIST established the Institute for Research Initiatives (IRI) to spearhead initiatives enhancing research capabilities. For that purpose, IRI employed all the internal resources of the following departments: three graduate schools, the Information Initiative Center, the Center for International Relations, the Gender Equality Promotion Office, the Career Services Office, and the Administration Office. Furthermore, NAIST was again selected as an eligible university for the Top Global Project in 2014. Following the selection, IRI restarted with newly established Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) and Center for Strategy and Planning in 2015, in order to reform our university toward becoming educational and research center.

Institute for Research Initiatives(IRI) strives to enhance our research capabilities fixing it's eyes on appropriate attitude it should be. Furthermore IRI strategically promotes advanced research in order to improve NAIST’s global presence.

In accordance with NAIST’s policy?“to conduct strategic management, sharing NAIST’s mission and goals with the whole NAIST community under the President’s leadership,” IRI has put in place a management system, consisting of the Division for Research Strategy and the Division for Industry-Government-Academia Collaboration, for integrated research management from upstream to downstream. The Division for Research Strategy conducts research development (supporting promotion of research strategies) and pre-award support (support prior to the securing of research funding), and the Division for Industry-Government-Academia Collaboration is in charge of promotion of research achievements, including patent applications and licensing.

Organizational Structure of IRI

IRI consists of the Division for Research Strategy and the Division for Industry-Government-Academia Collaboration. While the Division for Educational Development formulates research strategies from the perspective of NAIST as a whole and manages research, it also has laboratories for interdisciplinary and collaborative research. The role of the Division for Industry-Government-Academia Collaboration is to promote the deployment of research achievements, including patent applications and licensing.

Structure of Institute for Research Initiatives