Head of TC College
Head of the TC College Promotion Office
Open Facility Center
Assistant Director
Special Assistant to the Executive Director and Vice President
Professor, Planning Division
Shingo Ebata
Tokyo Institute of Technology's management vision is to realize a virtuous cycle with society based on academic excellence, and we have been promoting research that will be the source of this cycle. In particular, the strengthening of the University's research infrastructure (equipment, human resources, and operation systems) is a top priority, and various efforts have been made, including the consolidation of technical staff. In our current situation, many of the shared equipment is installed and provided by faculty members for large-scale projects. In addition, many of these facilities are managed through the self-help efforts of groups of faculty members, including costs, making it difficult to understand the burden on faculty members and problems such as aging facilities. This is a major issue in terms of management strategy. In addition, the technical staff is not fully utilized as a partner in promoting research by faculty members and researchers.
To solve these issues, we established the Open Facility Center (OFC) in April 2020 based on a proposal in the "National University Management Reform Promotion Project". The OFC is the core facility organization of Tokyo Institute of Technology, which oversees the shared use of the university-wide research infrastructure based on the university's management, education, and research strategies, and aims to provide the highest level of research support centered on shared facilities. In the same year, OFC was selected for the Core Facility Construction Support Program by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and as part of this program, OFC is promoting the certification and training of highly skilled technical experts in research infrastructure.
We have introduced a system to certify engineers with high technical and research planning abilities as technical conductors (hereinafter referred to as TCs). TCs are human resources who can work with faculty members to create a research environment that supports their research ideas. TC is a title that makes such human resources visible. Furthermore, we established the Tokyo Tech TC College and positioned it as a base for training highly technical professionals capable of research planning and management, which will become the pillar of our next-generation human resources strategy. We have started a specialized course. In the future, we will further aim to form a research support human resources training network centered on TC College. We ask for the cooperation and support of everyone involved.
As a researcher in space chemistry, I was responsible for the mission to analyze the return samples from the asteroid probe "Hayabusa". I was shocked by the outstanding skills of the technical staff who assisted me in this mission, and I still vividly remember how many times they helped me with their wonderful skills and knowledge.
In fact, the existence of such highly skilled technical personnel is known only to a small number of people involved, and there is no nationwide network. In addition, the training of highly skilled technical personnel at universities and other institutions has been dependent on the individual, has not been implemented as an organization, and has rarely been passed on to the next generation. Furthermore, in light of the global situation, the training of highly skilled technical personnel is now recognized as a major issue common to industry, academia, and government, and is also recognized as such in terms of policy.
TC College is an "innovative all-Japan human resources development system" that anticipates such social needs and creates a systematic curriculum through industry-academia-government collaboration. The mission of TC College is to provide opportunities for engineers from all over the country to work together in friendly competition, deepen their expertise, and acquire a broad range of knowledge to further expand their activities, improve their abilities, and advance their careers. The experience of sharing your knowledge and experiences, assembling equipment as a team, and interacting with your fellow students will surely provide you with food for the future.
Just like the technical staff who helped me and led me to the world's best research, I will cultivate human resources with high technical expertise across industry, academia, and government who can shine with vigor. We look forward to seeing you at TC College.
Tokyo Tech OFC Center Director
Tokyo Tech OFC Deputy Director
Head of OFC Development Office
Head of TC College (TC College Promotion Office)
物質分析系TC（バイオ･構造解析･材料評価）
Design Prod TC
Micro Process TC
情報系TC（山口大学）
Remote Analysis TC (Nagaoka UT)
Medical Engineering TC (Okayama Univ.)
Management TC
Collaborative research institute
National Institutes of Natural Sciences
Yamaguchi University (Satellite)
Nagaoka University of Technology (Satellite)
Okayama University (Satellite)
Cooperating Companies：
Shimadzu Corporation
JEOL Ltd.
Rigaku Co., Ltd.
PerkinElmer Japan Co., Ltd.
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[令和6年4月時点]
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