The University's origins go back to 1918 when Wireless Association founded the Technical Institute for Wireless-Communications to train wireless communications engineers. In 1949, under the new system of education established by the National School Establishment Act, the institute was transformed into the University of Electro-Communications. This name is the only name of a national university with an undergraduate department that does not include its location. The lack of a location in the name results from the founders' aspiration to create a university that would be open to all of Japan.
Because of the University's founding and its name, one might think that the University narrowly specializes in electricity and communication. However, the University expanded its areas of specialization amid Japan's rapid economic growth and the development of an advanced information society that co-occurred with that growth. Now, while the University still maintains information, electricity, and communication as its core areas of study, it also engages in a wide range of education and research that covers the fundamentals and application of areas such as physical engineering, materials science, life science, optical science, electronics, robotics, mechanical engineering, media, and the like.
The University's fundamental mission is to create and apply knowledge and technology that will contribute to humanity's sustained development. Our vision for how we intend to pursue this mission and the type of University that we wanted to be in 2018, 100 years after the University's founding, is laid out in UEC Vision 2018—Centennial Challenges. This vision is rooted in the understanding that the sustained development of humanity depends on our ability to break free from the material civilization of the 20th century and achieve a society in which everyone can live fulfilling, purposeful lives, and innovation that prioritizes person-to-person, person-to-nature, person-to-society, and person-to-artifact communication is essential for the achievement of this society. The University refers to the wide range of integrated scientific and technological systems that will create this innovation as "comprehensive communications sciences," because these systems will seek to understand a wide variety of phenomenon from the perspective of communication, in the broad sense of the term, and solve problems through the comprehensive application of related individual academic disciplines and component technologies. The University intends to use the comprehensive communications sciences as a foundation for engaging in research, training, and social service that will contribute to the society of the 21st century.
Guided by UEC Vision 2018 and the strategies that have been developed for its achievement (borderless knowledge, alliances and cooperation, and openness and transparency), the University is currently engaging in campuswide reforms that include faculty, students, and graduates. We are proud to say that one of the results of these reforms has been our selection by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology as one of 19 universities to receive assistance from the ministry as part of its Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities, which seeks to enhance the research capabilities of Japan as a whole by strengthening world-class research universities. However, this selection is also an indication of how much is expected of us and that we have a responsibility to make even more progress in the years to come. Thus, we will endeavor to enhance our research and education capabilities further.
The University that we have dedicated ourselves to becoming in UEC Vision 2018 is encapsulated in the motto "Unique and Exciting Campus." We aspire to make the University of Electro-Communications (UEC) a campus where unique students and researchers gather from around the world and are trained to be global leaders to create exciting new knowledge.
The University of Electro-Communications (UEC), aiming for the creation and achievement of knowledge and skill to contribute to the sustainable development of humankind, has the following three mission policies pursuing education and research at the cutting-edge of science and technology for the benefit of all humankind, cultivating international researchers and technologists to take the initiative, and creating engagement and cooperation with society in the pioneering of a new era of science and technology.
To strengthen Japan as a scientific and technological leader in the 21st century, the cultivation of quality researchers and technologists with comprehensive applied skills is indispensable. Because it has come such a long way to become a balanced institution for education and research, the University is expected to regularly reevaluate its mission and work to fulfill the duties of a world-class university by cultivating imaginative researchers and engineers with abilities based on society and technology, ethics, and internationalism. To attain this goal, the University's ongoing aim is to be a world leader in education and research, taking the initiative in contributing to not only Japan but also the world at large.
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