NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
TOKYO REGIONAL OFFICE
August 1, 2003
The National Science Foundation's Tokyo Regional Office periodically reports on developments in Japan that are related to the Foundation's mission. It also provides occasional reports on developments in other East Asian countries.
Tokyo Office Report Memoranda are intended to provide information for the use of NSF program officers and policy makers; they are not statements of NSF policy.
Report Memorandum #03-07
Selected Projects under the
COE Program in the 21st Century
The following report was prepared by Kazuko Shinohara of the National Science Foundation’s Tokyo Regional Office. Ms. Shinohara may be reached at kshinoha@nsf.gov
The second round of the "COE Program in the 21st Century" has selected 133 projects from 56 universities. It was established in 2002 and is a solicitation-type MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) program. It provides somewhere between Yen 100 million and Yen 500 million per project per year for five consecutive years in five fields in the first year and another five fields in the second year. Sometimes the program is called with its original name of "top 30 universities," whereas it turned out to be changed as the name might invite controversy by rank-ordering universities. These days the number of awards the universities have received from the program is used as an index to show the power of the universities. For example, all the universities which have received the grants are hoisting the number of awards on top of their homepages. The number is taken as an indicator of their level of efforts in preparation for surviving the competition after they become independent administrative organizations in April 2004.
As reported in our TRM #02-08 (http://www.nsftokyo.org/rm02-08.html), in the first year of the program, JFY2002, the MEXT selected the five fields of (1) Life Science, (2) Chemistry/materials sciences, (3) Information/electric/electronics, (4) Human literature, and (5) Interdisciplinary/new fields for the program.
In its second round in JFY2003 MEXT selected the following five fields and the following numbers of projects were granted out of 611 applications from 225 universities.
|
Field |
Number of Projects |
Number of Universities |
|
Medical science |
35 |
27 |
|
Mathematics/Physics/Geoscience |
24 |
15 |
|
Machinery/Civil engineering/ |
23 |
18 |
|
Social science |
26 |
14 |
|
Interdisciplinary/New fields |
25 |
21 |
|
Total in JFY2003 |
133 |
56 |
|
Total in JFY2002 |
113 |
50 |
|
Grand total for two years |
246 |
85 |
When the results are categorized by university, the following universities received grants:
(P): Private university;
(L): Public (Local) university.
Others: National universities
|
University |
Total number of projects awarded in two years |
Number of projects awarded in 2003 |
|
University of Tokyo |
26 |
15 |
|
Kyoto University |
22 |
11 |
|
Osaka University |
14 |
7 |
|
Nagoya University |
13 |
6 |
|
Tohoku University |
12 |
7 |
|
Keio University (P) |
12 |
7 |
|
Hokkaido University |
10 |
6 |
|
Tokyo Institute of Technology |
9 |
5 |
|
Waseda University (P) |
9 |
4 |
|
Kyushu University |
8 |
4 |
|
Kobe University |
7 |
6 |
|
Tsukuba University |
4 |
1 |
|
Hiroshima University |
4 |
2 |
|
Ritsumeikan University (P) |
4 |
1 |
|
Chiba University |
3 |
3 |
|
Hitotsubashi University |
3 |
3 |
|
Universities which received two awards from the program in two years |
|
Tokyo Medical and Dental University (2) |
|
Tokyo University of Foreign Language (0) |
|
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (0) |
|
Ochanomizu Women’s University (1) |
|
Yokohama National University (0) |
|
Nagaoka University of Technology (1) |
|
Toyohashi University of Technology (0) |
|
Nara Institute of Science and Technology (0) |
|
Okayama University (2) |
|
Tokushima University (2) |
|
Nagasaki University (1) |
|
Kumamoto University (1) |
|
Tokyo Metropolitan University (L) (2) |
|
Osaka City University (L) (1) |
|
Nihon University (P) (1) |
|
Doshisha University (P) (2) |
|
Kinki University (P) (1). |
|
Universities which received one award from the program in two years |
|
Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine |
|
Akita University |
|
Yamagata University (1) |
|
Gunma University |
|
University of Electro-Communications (1) |
|
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (1) |
|
Niigata University (1) |
|
Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University (1) |
|
Kanazawa University |
|
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (1) |
|
Fukui Medical University (1) |
|
Yamanashi University (1) |
|
Shinshu University |
|
Gifu University |
|
Hamamatsu University School of Medicine (1) |
|
Nagoya Institute of Technology |
|
Tottori University |
|
Ehime University |
|
Kyushu Institute of Design (1) |
|
Kyushu Institute of Technology (1) |
|
Saga University |
|
Miyazaki Medical College |
|
Yokohama City University (L) (1) |
|
University of Shizuoka (L) |
|
Osaka Prefecture University (L) |
|
Himeji Institute of Technology (L) |
|
College of Nursing Art and Science, Hyogo (L) (1) |
|
Jichi Medical School (P) (1) |
|
Aoyama Gakuin University (P) |
|
Kitasato University (P) |
|
Kokugakuin University (P) |
|
International Christian University (P) (1) |
|
Juntendo University (P) (1) |
|
Sophia University (P) |
|
St. Luke’s Collage of Nursing (P) (1) |
|
Tamagawa Gakuen Education (P) |
|
Chuo University (P) |
|
Tokai University (P) |
|
Tokyo Women’s Medical University (P) (1) |
|
Tokyo Denki University (P) (1) |
|
Tokyo University of Science (P) (1) |
|
Toyo University (P) (1) |
|
Hosei University (P) |
|
Kanagawa University (P) (1) |
|
Tokyo Politechnic University (P) (1) |
|
Aichi University (P) |
|
Fujita Health University (P) (1) |
|
Nihon Fukushi University (P) (1) |
|
Meijo University (P) |
|
Kansai Medical University (P) (1) |
|
Kwansei Gakuin University (P) (1) |
|
Kurume University (P) (1) |