Programs

Thematic Programs

Past Programs

2023MRNimages

[2023MRN] October 2023 – December 2023

Integrated Understanding of Marine Environment and Marine Ecosystems

There is a widely recognized need to deepen our understanding of the rapidly changing marine environment and ecosystems through interdisciplinary research. The theme of this program is an integrated understanding of the physical, biogeochemical, and biological environments of the oceans, which have been studied as separate disciplines; an understanding of the global marine ecosystems

Read More >

2022REXimages

[2022REX] October 2022 – November 2022

Evolving and Emerging Redox Biology and Bioenergetics for Medicine and Human Health

Redox biology is rapidly evolving and running into an emerging new era in life science. It is not merely dealing with disease-oriented issues affecting human health but also with the most fundamental aspect...

Read More >

2022ESAimages

[2022ESA] September 2022 – October 2022

Insights Into Human History in the Eurasian Stone Age: Recent Developments in Archaeology, Palaeoanthropology, and Genetics

Recent archaeological, palaeoanthropological and genetic studies indicate that two archaic humans (Neanderthals and Denisovans) lived in Central Asia after c. 130,000 years ago, and anatomically modern...

Read More >

2022EIDimages

[2022EID] August 2022 – January 2023

Frontier of Understanding Earth's Interior and Dynamics

The interior of the Earth remains a mystery. It is some 6400 km to the center of the Earth, but we have only drilled 12 km in the crust deep and not yet reached the mantle. Geobiologists have found micro...

Read More >

2021DISimages

[2021DIS] November 2020 – March 2023

POST 2011 Tohoku triple disaster: Lessons and their global application on multi-hazards and cascading disasters

This program will discuss the post 2011 strategy as a memorial event of the 2011 Great East Japan triple disasters (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident) that pointed out the importance of mitigating...

Read More >

2021QCAimages

[2021QCA] March 2021 – February 2023

Quantum–Annealing–Based High–Performance Computing – Optimizing Real–World Systems

Large–scale combinatorial optimization problems are becoming ever more important in various fields such as disaster prevention, finance, logistics/traffic, medicine, or state–of–the–art technologies like...

Read More >

2020EFR

[2021EFR] November 2020 – March 2022

Environmental and Financial Risks in Market–oriented Societies

Life is full of risks, and, in recent decades, we have confronted an unprecedented scale of natural disasters, environmental problems and financial crises, which have had devastating effects on people...

Read More >

2020MBK

[2021MBK] November 2020 – March 2022

Constructing a healthy society: the road from an integrated biobank to the real world

Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization has already constructed the integrated biobank, which is consisted of biospecimen and information on cohort studies, genome information and metabolome...

Read More >

2020TEL

[2020TEL] September 2020 – March 2021

Designing the Human–Centric IoT Society–Cooperative Industry–Academic Strategies for Creative Future Connection–

While the innovations driven by IoT and AI are expected to greatly contribute to our society, IoT and AI may have unexpected negative effects, depending on how they are developed and implemented in...

Read More >

2019STM

[2019STM] May 2019 – July 2019

Plant Stem Cells: Source of Plant Vitality

The main theme of this program is plant stem cells. Stem cells are the foundation for every organ. Unlike stem cells in animals, plant stem cells can form after embryogenesis and are dispersed throughout…

Read More >

2019QSC

[2019QSC] June 2019 – February 2020

Creating a New Frontier through the Synergy of Quasicrystals and Strongly Correlated Electron Systems

The program is devoted to emerging research interests in strongly correlated electron systems realized in structurally complex materials, with particular focus on quasicrystals and related compounds. The aim…

Read More >

2019CBA

[2019CBA] September 2019 – February 2020

Cancer – from Biology to Acceptance

Cancer has been the leading cause of death since 1981 in Japan, accounting for 30% of all deaths. Therefore, cancer study (understanding of the mechanisms of oncogenesis, improvement of diagnostic…

Read More >

2020TEL

[2019TEL] September 2019 – October 2019

【Pre–program】Designing the Human–Centric IoT Society
–Cooperative Industry–Academic Strategies for Creative Future Connection–

While the innovations driven by IoT and AI are expected to greatly contribute to our society, IoT and AI may have unexpected negative effects, depending on how they are developed and implemented in society…

Read More >

2018NEA

[2018NEA] June 2018 – March 2019

Geologic Stabilization and Human Adaptations in Northeast Asia

Northeast Asia is one of the coldest regions of human geographical distribution on our planet and is home to the Pole of Cold in northern hemisphere. How did the human population adapt the harsh environment,…

Read More >

2018SRM

[2018SRM] June 2018 – March 2019

String–Math 2018

For mathematics, string theory has been a source of many significant inspirations, ranging from Seiberg–Witten theory in four–manifolds, to enumerative geometry and Gromov–Witten theory in algebraic…

Read More >

2018UAC

[2018UAC] October 2018

Tohoku Universal Acoustical Communication Month 2018

Sound has played a fundamental role in communications since the dawn of humankind and the rise of spoken languages. With the advent of technology, we devised methods to record sounds and to transmit…

Read More >

2018FCL

[2018FCL] May 2018 – October 2018

Frontier of Chemical Communication

Chemical Communication is newly defined as a system for inducing certain bio–functions through multiple molecular interactions. We have already studied chemical biology to elucidate bio–functions by molecular …

Read More >

2017PDE

[2017PDE] July 10, 2017 – February 22, 2018

Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations for Future Applications

The Thematic Program ”Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations for Future Applications” consists of visits of foreign mathematicians to Sendai, Japan, and of seminars, mini–courses and international conference...

Read More >

2017AGR

[2017AGR] July 21, 2017 – September 23, 2017

New Horizons in Food Science via Agricultural Immunology

Agricultural immunology is a new research field that fuses animal, marine and plant immunology, all of which had been considered separate topics. However, recent progress in immunological research has…

Read More >

2017ASC

[2017ASC] May 10, 2017 – May 27, 2017

Aging Science: from Molecules to Society

Why do we age? This question is drawing increased attention in our current super–aging society that we must now confront. The most critical issue in a super–aging society is the achievement of “Smart Aging”,...

Read More >

2016IDT

[2016IDT] August 28, 2016 – March 22, 2017

Comprehensive Research on Materials, Systems and Energy for a Sustainable Future of the Earth

Our society produces and consumes gigantic amount of energy to keep its activities every day. In this process, however, we put huge environmental burdens on the earth and accelerate global warming...

Read More >

2016JPN

[2016JPN] May 16, 2016 – March 8, 2017

The 21st Century Hasekura Project: Japanese Studies as the Interface of a New Knowledge

This program will consider such different topics as art production, religion, thought, and subculture. These topics will be connected and understood coherently in terms of “cultural transmission and diffusion...

Read More >

2016EPD

[2016EPD] July 3, 2016 – December 4, 2016

Earth and Planetary Dynamics

This program will focus on the “Origin, Evolution, and Future of the Earth” based on research in four major areas: Planetary exploration, the Earth’s dynamics, Interactions between the ocean and...

Read More >

2016AGP

[2016AGP] April 4, 2016 – July 13, 2016

Modern Interactions between Algebra, Geometry and Physics

The major goals of this thematic program are to discuss and study recent developments in the field of moduli spaces and their quantization by inviting distinguished researchers in mathematics and...

Read More >

2015INE

[2015INE] September 28, 2015 – December 16, 2015

The Effects of Technological Changes on Social Mobility and Income Distribution

Program Theme This program will consider the effects of technological changes on social mobility and income distribution, focusing specifically on their impact on social inequality in the modern age....

Read More >

2015SPN

[2015SPN] September 14, 2015 – December 11, 2015

Spintronics: from Mathematics to Devices

Program Theme Since Pauli and Dirac we know that the electron comes in 4 flavors, which in the non–relativistic limit reduce to 2 components of the intrinsic angular momentum, the “up” and “down” spi...

Read More >

2015FBS

[2015FBS] July 21, 2015 – March 18, 2016

Frontiers of Brain Science

Program Theme The fundamental aim of brain science is to understand how our mind emerges from matter. By unveiling the complexity and dynamics created by the simple molecular interactions which...

Read More >

2015TPH

[2015TPH] April 20, 2015 – March 11, 2016

Fundamental Problems in Quantum Physics: Strings, Black Holes and Quantum Information

Program Theme The discovery of the Higgs particle was a cornerstone in the development of the theory of elementary particle physics and has opened the door to a new era. It is now the time to discuss...

Read More >

2015INE

[2014INE] May 1, 2014 – March 5, 2015

【Pre–program】 Theoretical and Empirical Studies of the Effects of Technological Changes on Social Mobility and Income Distribution: Focusing on Inequalities of Social Mobility and Income in East Asia

Program Theme This program focuses on the effect of technological change on social mobility and income distribution. This will consist of an interdisciplinary collaboration between sociologists and e...

Read More >

2014DIS

[2014DIS] July 22, 2014 – March 10, 2015

Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: Future Strategies for Disaster Risk Reduction

Program Theme Huge natural disasters in our societies are now a global issue. To address the need for an international disaster prevention strategy, the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction...

Read More >

2014TMM

[2014TMM] November 8, 2014 – February 25, 2015

A Health Informatics Infrastructure for a New Era

Program Theme Health care, biomedical research, and public health have entered the digital age. With these developments come revolutionary opportunities to improve the health of individuals and popul...

Read More >

2014BIG

[2014BIG] July 18, 2014 – November 27, 2014

Challenges for Big Data in our Society: Statistical Analysis of Large Scale, High Dimensional Data for Socio–Economic Problems

Program Theme In the summer of 2014, we will commence the “Challenges of Big Data in our Society” program series. In the first program, we will discuss the development of tools for analyzing socioeco...

Read More >

2013HIG

[2013HIG] October 21, 2013 – October 25, 2013

Particle Physics and Cosmology after the discovery of the Higgs boson

Program Theme Tohoku University has decided to establish the Tohoku Forum for Creativity, which is modeled after the Aspen Center for Physics, USA, or the Isaac Newton Institute, UK. Namely, it will ...

Read More >