Tsukuba University

is a national research university located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

The university has 28 college clusters and schools with around 16,500 students (as of 2014). The main Tsukuba campus covers an area of 258 hectares (636 acres), making it the second largest single campus in Japan.

The university has a branch campus in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, offering graduate programs for working adults in the capital and managing K-12 schools in Tokyo that are attached to the university.

Three Nobel Prize laurates have taught at the university, Leo Esaki, Hideki Shirakawa and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Apart from them, Satoshi Ōmura studied as an audit student.

History

The University of Tsukuba can trace its roots back to , a normal school established in 1872 to educate primary and secondary teachers. The school was promoted to a university in 1929, as Tokyo University of Literature and Science (東京文理科大学, ''Tōkyō Bunrika Daigaku''). In 1949, Tokyo University of Education (東京教育大学, ''Tōkyō Kyōiku Daigaku'') was established under the post-war educational system, and most faculties and facilities were transferred to the new university. The old university was closed officially in 1962. When the plan was made to build an entirely new city dedicated to science and research and education in 1963, it was decided that the university was to be relocated to the new city as the hub for the research activities. This plan caused outrage amongst some students, and fierce student protests forced the university to cancel classes for a few months and even the admission process for 1969. Meanwhile, the new university, the University of Tsukuba, was established by the government in 1973, and the first group of students were matriculated at the new campus in Tsukuba in April 1974. The old university was officially closed in 1978, with most of its assets and faculties transferred to the new university in Tsukuba.

In October 2002, the University of Tsukuba merged with the . The School of Library and Information Science and the Graduate School of Library and Information – Media Studies were subsequently established.

In April 2024, the university announced that it would open its first overseas campus, housing the School of Transdisciplinary Science and Design, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, starting in September.

Features

The university is primarily focused on STEMM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Medicine), physical education, and related interdisciplinary fields. This focus is reflected by the university's location in the heart of Tsukuba Science City, alongside over 300 other research institutions. The university counts among its faculty three Nobel laureates (two in Physics and one in Chemistry), and over 70 Olympic athletes.

It has established interdisciplinary PhD programs in both Human Biology and Empowerment Informatics and the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine, which were created through the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's competitive funding projects.

Its Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences is represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction

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