2013.0301
NTNU signed MOUs for academic research and cooperation agreements with the University of Tsukuba, Japan
After years of joint efforts of NTNU faculties, the university signed an exchange program with the University of Tsukuba of Japan in December 2012.
The University of Tsukuba was the first comprehensive university established under a nation-wide university reform in Japan in the 1970s. It was established in March, 1978 after taking over the staff and academic resources of its forerunner Tokyo University of Education. Like NTNU, the University of Tsukuba started as the education institutions. Four decades after its establishment, the University of Tsukuba was ranked NO 32 in 2012 QS Asian University Rankings. It is famous for its achievement in education, sports, literature, arts and medicine. It has transformed from a teaching-oriented university to a comprehensive one, which is an ideal role model for NTNU.
Prof. Chih-fu Cheng, NTNU’s Vice President, led a delegation to visit the University of Tsukuba in 2010. He met the then president Nobuhiro Yamada and visited the university’s College of Disability Science and School of Health and Physical Education. The cooperation of the two universities was established in three phases. The College of Sports and Recreation of NTNU established a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and an exchange program with the Health and Physical Education School of the University of Tsukuba in September 2010. In August 2011, NTNU’s College of Education signed a MoU and an exchange program with the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences of the University of Tsukuba. The College of Liberal Arts of NTNU signed a MoU with the Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences with the University of Tsukuba in July 2012.
The Office of International Affairs said the cooperation with the University of Tsukuba was a landmark in NTNU’s history. The two universities finally established a school-level cooperation agreement covering all the colleges and schools recently after Vice President Cheng had visited the University of Tsukuba in 2010 along with NTNU’s Provost, Dean of Student Affairs, and Professor Cheng-Fen Chang from the Department of Special Education— who is an alumna of University of Tsukuba and Professor Po-Hsiu Lin of the Graduate Institute of Sport, Leisure and Hospitality Management. President Chang also paid a visit to Tsukuba in September 2012. The University of Tsukuba will send delegations to visit NTNU’s College of Liberal Arts in the near future for further cooperation.