Kyoto Institute of Technology

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Our Kyoto location is vital to the design, science, and engineering programs at the Kyoto Institute of Technology. This thousand-year capital of Japan leads to many Japanese cultural developments and the production and refinement of traditional craft. The inherited traditions and techniques and the culture that enabled Kyoto's artisans to rise to high levels of expertise contribute to novel technological innovation today. At KIT, we benefit from this heritage of Kyoto wisdom and tradition as we innovate for positive social and environmental change by being acutely attuned to feedback. We consistently verify the influences and consequences of the technology we make available to the public and the products we create and develop to improve people's lives. Our mission is to model our research and education on Kyoto's accumulated wisdom and influence, a city that has passed the test of time.
At KIT, it is not enough to train experts and technicians. Our graduates become "Tech Leaders" who demonstrate leadership built on a solid grounding in their area's fundamental knowledge and skills. They are required to acquire the ability to lead various projects to success. To that end, all students complete four educational programs to ensure they develop a definite cultural identity, a competency in specialized skills, leadership skills, and the ability to lead and manage a project in a foreign language. We reliably graduate Tech Leaders from our six undergraduate, fourteen master, and eight doctoral programs.
We also encourage students in all programs to practice design thinking. Social innovation cannot be realized only through specialized research. Students must breach the borders of their academic discipline and communicate across majors. A multidisciplinary approach is essential to addressing the issues that face the world today. However, merely blending majors will not provide solutions in itself. We must consider how this fusion can best spur innovation. We must introduce design, in its broadest sense, as a means to derive solutions. To put this into practice, we have established the KYOTO Design Lab, a center for collaboration among KIT and top world designers and architects. Here, ideas are already being developed and successfully applied to issues. This methodology is being adopted university-wide as we introduce design thinking into textile and polymer research, green innovation research, advanced insect research, and other areas.
Collaboration is essential to the expansion of university-wide design thinking. At KYOTO Design Lab, international collaboration has already produced several significant achievements. Collaboration at the local level is underway as well. Regarding community and business, KIT now has a cross-sectoral Regional Revitalization Tech Program at our northern Kyoto Fukuchiyama campus, where organic collaboration among KIT, Kyotango, and Ayabe is making promising headway.
KIT has conducted education and research on the principle of "cultivating our sensitivity and creating a universal technology that is harmonious with nature and beneficial to our spiritual welfare." The world has seen severe environmental pollution, global warming, the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of the ozone layer, and efficiency-oriented science and technology have been left stranded and need reconsideration. KIT's principle of "creating technology considerate towards both humans and the environment" is more important than ever.
Based on our past achievements, KIT is responsible for operating both the Environmental Management System and Safety Management System and stimulating education and research to be more environmentally friendly and safety concerned. KIT's responsibility is also to contribute to the sustainable development in the 21st century of science and technology by fostering students with "an awareness of the environment and safety" and developing "a sustainable campus."
The unique characteristic of KIT, the exploration of "Wisdom, Beauty, and Technology," has evolved over our 110-year history dating from establishing our predecessor institutions, Kyoto College of Technology and Kyoto College of Textile Fibers. This illustrious history now turns a new page, as we make the products of our research and education available to the world. Ensuring student mastery of technology by creating ethical and discerning feats of engineering, we target the harmonic integration of wisdom and beauty with intellect and sensibility.

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