GREETINGS

President’s message upon the 20th anniversary of the establishment of KUT
Kochi University of Technology (KUT) was inaugurated in April 1997, and this year marks our 20th anniversary. The birthplace of KUT, Kami Campus, used to be the Shikoku Stud Farm, a laboratory for research on the breeding of high quality stallions. The area has also long been famous for its beautiful cherry blossoms in the spring. In that setting KUT embarked on education and research missions as the only engineering university in Kochi Prefecture. The beauty of the university buildings was recognized by the Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architecture in 1998.
A central pillar of any university is research. Our mission is to take on new challenges which have never been done or even attempted before by any other university in the world; to reflect our research outcomes in the education of our students; and to broadly disseminate those outcomes as a contribution to society.
With the support of the community, the prefecture and the nation, KUT has gathered outstanding faculty members and self-activating, capable staff and has created an absolutely unique institution to fulfill its mission, based on our fundamental goal of becoming a university constantly evolving in its pursuit of the ideal form of a university. We intend to continue growing as a venue for the productive encounter of students, academic and administrative staff, researchers, business people and citizens, in an atmosphere of accumulated knowledge.
KUT has made various distinctive management innovations to provide an optimal environment for researchers to incubate ideas: enhancing research facilities; encouraging researcher exchanges; and improving the research environment. To create our education system, we adopted the quarter system at the time of the establishment of the university so as to maximize the learning effect, and since 2003 we have recruited top quality educational lecturers to provide nurturing student guidance. We added a humanities component with the establishment of the School of Economics & Management in 2009. In addition to its research facilities, KUT has added unique facilities including dormitories, a center for international exchange, and sport facilities including a baseball field. The organizational structure supporting these management endeavors has set an example for other universities in Japan; in 2009 KUT converted from private university status to public university corporation, the first university in the country to do so. More recently, KUT entered into corporate integration with University of Kochi in 2015.
Since KUT is a university of moderate size, we have been able to pursue the ideal university form. With an eye towards our 30th, 50th and 100th anniversaries, KUT will continue to develop tirelessly. We humbly ask your continuing support; please watch us to grow.
Masahiko Isobe
President,