Message from Yoshihiko Masuda, Chairman of the Board

One of our aims in establishing Toyota Technological Institute (TTI) was to provide good educational and research opportunities with low financial burden to those who, though eager to study, entered the workforce without experiencing higher education. Such opportunities help to cultivate people who will contribute to society. We have been fortunate to receive employees from many companies who recognize the significance of being a student and the importance of learning through first-hand practice.

In 1993, we accept general high school graduates with no work experience. TTI's main objective is provide high-quality education to prospective students with a mix of those with and without experience in the workforce, by which truly innovative engineers and scientists with rich sense of humanity be cultivated through close collaboration with industry.

After the establishment of the doctoral program in 1995, we developed high-quality cutting-edge research fields and, as a result, received support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for the establishment of large-scale research projects such as the Special Funds for the Creation of Strategic Research Infrastructure. This has led to TTI's proactive interaction with industries and other institutions and the high evaluation of our research.

In this way, we continue to improve TTI as a unique institution with great significance in the 21st century and aspire towards the development of practical research and cultivation of people who, through involvement with TTI, continue to have great ambitions and provide momentum to the world.

Message from Kazuo Hotate, President

Furthering our inherent missions at Toyota Technological Institute

Toyota Technological Institute (TTI) is a small-scale university that welcomes only 100 first-year students each year. However, TTI was built with a blueprint that embodies the philosophy of the Japanese saying, 山椒は小粒でもピリ辛い, which means "Small head but great wit." TTI is proud of our distinctive characteristics despite our size. One such characteristic is the student-to-teacher ratio of around 10 laid out in the founding blueprint, which is equal to that of any national university, and makes it possible for us to challenge more and reach higher achievements in education and research. There are three missions shared by universities, "education", "research", and "contributing to society". By guiding us with their blueprint, our founders handed over the baton of responsibility of continuing to strive towards greater success in all of these fundamental missions.

In university education, students should be driven to seek a deep understanding of consequence. Every consequence must have a reason, and so this deep understanding involves accepting the reason and learning from it in order to move forwards. Moreover, the themes that are studied in university create a multi-layered and systematized large-scale chain of consequence and reason. Therefore, the right attitude towards study is important, the ability to think for yourself and reason logically. The same attitude is required for innovative and successful research. This fundamental and essential way of thinking is the same for both study and research in universities, and is the reason why we are able to make great discoveries.

Toyota Technological Institute was founded in 1981 by the Toyota Motor Corporation as a part of its corporate social responsibility activities. Our founding philosophy is "Respect the spirit of research and creativity, and always strive to stay ahead of the times." That is the inheritance from Sakichi Toyoda who laid the foundations of the Toyota group, and it perfectly encapsulates the missions of higher education institutions. Since its foundation, supported by the national government and related companies, our institute has been developing an open and vigorous education and research. We offer a dormitory system for the first year students, hands-on study at the practice laboratory and the clean room. We encourage our students to develop global awareness by providing a study abroad program at our sister school, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, and a Master's overseas research and practice program. These are all unique educational programs that we have proudly developed and offer. In the fields of research, each of our laboratories offers creative pursuits. Additionally, under keywords such as smart vehicles, smart energy, smart photons or smart materials and smart information technologies, we are operating innovative research centers for collaborations among our TTI laboratories and with our partner institutions.

Our campus has been renewed and reborn with modern buildings and facilities. I strongly believe that now is the perfect time for all of the faculty, staff and students to unite and achieve new strides towards greater achievements in the missions of our institute.

Just like the soaring camphor tree that stands at the center of our campus (we call it "Tenju", the Heaven Tree), we, too, will strive to reach new heights in both education and research.

I greatly appreciate your support and guidance.

The President of Toyota Technological Institute
Prof. Kazuo Hotate