Center for Future Innovation

Message from Director

Director

KURASHIKI Tetsusei

The Center for Future Innovation (CFi), Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, was established in April 2020 through the consolidation of operations at the Center for Open Innovation Research and Education and the Strategy Management and Support Office, both of which had been managed under the Graduate School of Engineering, for the purpose of supporting the realization of the TechnoArena concept that the Graduate School of Engineering promotes as a whole.

We at CFi, while quickly responding to social problems and needs, promote the interdisciplinary research and development, as well as the exploration of new interdisciplinary areas that will produce innovation, to solve issues and contribute to the future society. We will especially advance the formation of the Center of Excellence to drive these academic areas and improve the research capacity of the Graduate School of Engineering through support for innovation in consideration of venture businesses, initiatives to co-create a collaborative society aiming to solve social problems, the opportunity of offering to develop collaborative integrated research, fostering of the next generation of leaders, and the management of the faculty’s research activities. Moreover, we will promote and provide interdisciplinary education programs, and to enhance educational capability through the Course for Industry-Academia-Government Co-creation, support for recurrent education and support for the exploration of issues by students.

We appreciate your support.

About the CFi

The Center for Future Innovation (CFi), Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, flexibly and swiftly corresponds to social problems and the needs that are becoming more diversified and complex. At the same time, CFi creates interdisciplinary scientific areas that will produce innovations to serve problem solving, as well as to contribute to the future society, and promote the development of the next generation of leaders who will lead related research and development. We at CFi are especially committed to the following.

[1] Planning and management of the TechnoArena, which explores areas of interdisciplinary research and development that leads to innovation and carries out education related to such areas, while quickly responding to social problems and needs, as well as contributing to the creation of the future society

[2] Education of researchers who will be the next generation of leaders through the promotion of the tenure track system and support for research by young scientists; promotion of industry, government and academia collaboration; and promotion to strengthen the research capability of the entire Graduate School of Engineering through the introduction of the University Research Administrator (URA) and Institutional Research (IR)

[3] Implementation of education for industry-academia-government co-creation and a graduate program for advanced interdisciplinary studies, as well as practice to improve the educational capability of the Graduate School of Engineering through the promotion of recurrent education

By establishing four areas in the Center for Future Innovation—area of the TechnoArena, area of planning research capability, area of planning educational capability, respectively corresponding to the above-mentioned [1] to [3], and the area for planning management power to carry out these three areas effectively, we aim to realize the OU Ecosystem that our university is strongly promoting, while each area collaborates organically.