Tohoku University: A world class institution for integrated research

For more than a century, Tohoku University has been consistently ranked amongst the top academic institutions in Japan. Its research achievements and contributions, coupled with its wide network of collaborative partners, led to it being one of the first institutions to be conferred the status of a Designated National University by the Japanese government in June 2017.

With top results in a variety of research fields, the university is also proactively engaged in industrial collaboration with both Japanese and foreign companies alike.

Achievements of Tohoku University

World University Ranking (Japan edition): Ranked 1st in Japan

Reference: World University Ranking Japan Edition, Times Higher Education, from 2020 to 2023.

Number of highly cited researchers: Ranked 3rd nationally

Reference: Highly Cited Researchers 2022, Clarivate^TM.

Number of joint research projects with private companies: Ranked 2nd nationally

Reference: Implementation status of industry-academia collaboration at universities,etc., Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2021.

Research Profiles

The Tohoku University maintains a list of promising research on their homepage to share their research resources and results with the industry.

https://www.rpip.tohoku.ac.jp/seeds/lang:en/( TU Research Profiles )( External link )

World leading research fields at Tohoku University

Tohoku University serves as a world leading research hub in the four research fields it specializes in, created by concentrating the resources of the entire school into a single high-level research institution.

1 Materials Science

• Number of academic paper citations received：Rank 1st in Japanese university, Thomson Reuters, Jan. 2010 to Dec. 2020
• 400 material sciences researchers：One of the world's largest group

2 Futuristic Healthcare

• Created Japan’s first open bed lab at Tohoku University Hospital to provide companies the opportunity to test R&D projects on-site.
• Leads the nation in providing opportunities to companies to conduct joint research in aging medicine to respond to rapid aging society.
• Established the world’s leading comprehensive biobank, conducting three-generation family-based cohort on approx. 70,000 paticipants.

3 Spintronics

• World leading citation rate and patent number

4 Disaster Science

• Pioneering the new research field of “Disaster Science”, combining both humanitarian and science realms.
• The world’s first university to have published research results based on experiences from the Great East Japan Earthquake.