Hitoshi Murayama, Director of IPMU
On Jan.11, 2011, Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was approved as the first entity within the Todai Institutes for Advanced Study (TODIAS). This provides IPMU a “citizenship” within Todai, and a wonderful opportunity to continue its research on the fundamental questions about the Universe. We hope to play our own role in pursuing the vision of President Hamada to realize Todai as a “world-leading center of knowledge”. At the same time, this is a critical step for IPMU to become a permanent member of the Todai community.
IPMU was founded on Oct 1, 2007 by the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese government. The WPI funding has a term of 10 years, and mandates (1) world class research, (2) internationalization by adopting English as the official language and employing a large number of non-Japanese researchers, (3) scientific breakthroughs by fusion of disciplines, (4) new organizational structure unprecedented in Universities in Japan. This way, IPMU is required to achieve a high visibility to the worldwide scientific community.
Starting from scratch, IPMU has been appointing researchers from around the world, setting its research agenda, and building up its infrastructure in a dizzying pace. In three years it has grown to a research institute of about 120 members including graduate students and support staff. About 60% of the 65-member full-time research staff are not Japanese nationals.
I deeply thank President Hamada for his bold vision, Director Okamura for his involvement in kick-starting IPMU, and everybody in the Todai community for making the TODIAS possible. The IPMU members and I will do our best to fulfill the expectations in TODIAS, and ask for your continued support.
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Todai Institutes for Advanced Study (TODIAS)