UTokyo-IIS held a seminar titled “Delivering the Vision — Closing the gap between academic research and society” on June 13, 2022, at the university’s New York Office to belatedly showcase the facility that underwent major renovations in 2020. The seminar focused on the institute’s research activities at the boundary between life science and engineering. It demonstrated IIS efforts to facilitate further research and spark innovation through interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration among researchers, engineers, designers and those outside the university who are willing to support such research. Participants in this thought-provoking event were Professor Miles Pennington (design-led innovation); Associate Professor Yoshiho Ikeuchi (biomolecular and cellular engineering); and Associate Professor Yoshiyuki Kawazoe (design of architecture), all from IIS. UTokyo President and former IIS Director General Teruo Fujii joined the session online from Japan as a keynote speaker.

To help prevent the worst consequences of climate change, Japan and more than 100 other nations have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality, or net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. However, Japan lags far behind many European nations in the wide adoption of Battery Electric Vehicles (EV hereinafter), which have been touted as eco-friendly because they do not emit greenhouse gases. To rectify this situation, Project Associate Professor Hiroyuki Baba and Project Research Associate Masaki Imanaka, both of the Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS), are developing IoT-based technologies to charge electric vehicles in a more eco-friendly manner by adjusting demand for electricity generated from renewable energy sources.

Japan has been in the forefront of research and development concerning the use of hydrogen energy for vehicles since the government committed itself about 20 years ago to creating a "hydrogen society." Professor Nobuhiro Yoshikawa of the Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS), is conducting research aimed at developing hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), which are seen as ideal eco-friendly cars because they do not emit carbon dioxide. His approach is to help develop light, low-cost fuel tanks that can hold high-pressure hydrogen. Such fuel tanks are a key component in fuel cell cars, the widespread adoption of which is essential if Japan wants to attain carbon neutrality by 2050.

In autumn 2021, UTokyo-IIS and Continental Japan announced the four winners of the first Continental UTokyo-IIS Global Engineering Fellowship. The grant is provided by Continental Japan to IIS graduate students who hope to make the world a better place to live through their research.

Professor Umeno looks into how materials deform and fracture in nano- and microworld with simple computer programs he devises