In FY 2002, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) started a new program called "The 21st Century COE Program" to support research in universities. The program aims to form the 'Education and Research base' with the world's highest standards in each discipline. It also aims to develop Japan's human resources by producing individuals who will become future global leaders, and create unique universities with global competitiveness. 464 projects were applied for in 5 categories of research areas from Japanese national, public and private universities, and on September 30, the results of the screening were announced as follows; Life sciences: 28 projects Chemistry, material sciences: 21 projects Information sciences, electrical and electronic engineering: 20 projects Humanities: 20 projects Interdisciplinary, combined fields, new disciplines: 24 projects From Kyudai, the following 4 projects were accepted.

Life Science

Integrative Life Sciences- Postgenome Research of Systematic Life Sciences(Japanese only) Program Leader: Yukio Fujiki, Professor, Faculty of Sciences

Summary Recent developments in the life sciences has made it possible to delineate the life broadly covering from "genome" to "population" with common terms such as DNA. In addition, it becomes more likely that life is defined in an "integrated" system. The aim of our program includes the reorganization of the current disciplines at the level of "integrative life sciences" and the education and production of many talented students.

Objectives

The explosive development of the life sciences in the 20th century has made it possible to understand biological phenomena at the level of the "genome," "cell," "individual" and "population" with common terms such as DNA. In addition, it becomes more likely that life is defined in an "integrated" system. Our program aims to re-organize the current life-science disciplines, establish a top-grade reputed center of "integrative life sciences," and educate and produce many talented students. We will promote the program more efficiently by setting up the COE council, positioned over the newly organized research disciplines. The COE council takes the responsibilities to direct the program as a whole by integrating respective plans, such as the construction of the infra-facilities and the implementation of the inter-disciplinary collaborative research projects and educational courses. One of our goals in the 5-year program also includes the unification with other graduate programs, such as an application-oriented graduate program on our campus.

Chemistry, Material Science

Functional Innovation of Molecular Informatics Program Leader: Seiji Shinkai, Professor, Faculty of Engineering

Summary Based on the great accomplishments and potential in advanced molecular materials research and education of the division of applied chemistry in Kyushu University, this COE program attempts to create a new concept of "molecular informatics," which will be a key science in the 21st century.

Objectives

The development of new materials and molecules is essential for chemical and materials research, and new molecules greatly promote scientific and technological innovation in many fields. The division of applied chemistry and the related groups in Kyushu University have already accomplished excellent research in the chemistry of sophisticated molecular materials. Building on these foundations, this program attempts to create a new science of "molecular informatics" which is a key concept for the generation of artificial molecular intelligence and molecular robotics in the 21st century.

Information Sciences, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Reconstruction of Social Infrastructure related to Information Science and Electrical Engineering(Japanese only) Program Leader: Mitsuo Maeda, Professor, Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering

Summary The objectives of this program are to build up a COE to be able to make proposals useful to the reconstruction of the social infrastructure in the 21st century from the field of information science and electrical engineering.

Trademark of Faculty of Information Science and Eletrical Engineering

Objectives

The challenges raised by the rapid progress of the information-oriented society, globalization and recognition of problems in environment and energy consumption call for the reconstruction of the social infrastructure in the 21st century. People are looking forward to the introduction of a new concept based on safety, reliability, hard security, and the recovery of humanity. In order to develop this concept, the program aims to build up a COE to be able to make important proposals related to the reconstruction of social infrastructure in the 21st century from the field of information science and electrical engineering, together with the System LSI Research Center established in 2001. In educational terms, we aim to produce high-level researchers and engineers who have all-round ability from the development of electric devices to the construction of large-scale social systems.

Humanities

East Asia and Japan: Interaction and transformations Program Leader: Yuichiro Imanishi, Professor, Faculty of Humanities

Summary The project puts together Kyushu University's human and intellectual resources and aims to lay the foundation of a new disciplinary framework for understanding Asia that can be called the "New Asian studies." To accomplish the objective, the project investigates the long-term process through which the regions of Asia, and the Japanese archipelago (amongst others), interacted and co-transformed. The project is also designed to produce a new generation of scholars who can make significant contributions to the understanding of the world from the perspective grown and rooted in Asia.

Objectives

The project investigates interaction and the formation of the identities of various types and scales in East Asia by examining the process through which regional units in East Asia, Japanese archipelago amongst the others, interacted and mutually transformed. The task will be undertaken as an interdisciplinary enterprise by a term of specialists in Japanese History, Asian History, Korean History, Archaeology, Japanese Language and Literature. A significant objective of the project is to contribute to the re-identification of the position of Japan among the Asian countries in the globalized world.