New Town Hall Meetings encourage open dialogue across Science Tokyo community

Science Tokyo’s new Town Hall Meetings, initiated and led by President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Naoto Ohtake and President and Chief Academic Officer (CAO) Yujiro Tanaka, have been encouraging open discussion on various issues across the Institute since late 2024.

Following the establishment of Science Tokyo in October 2024, Ohtake, Tanaka, and other executive team members have visited the Institute’s campuses actively to communicate with community members. Starting with Konodai Campus on November 12, Science Tokyo’s leadership spoke at all five campuses over several weeks, holding a total of nine Town Hall Meetings, including one in English. In total, 397 members of faculty, administrative and technical staff, and other Science Tokyo members participated.

Ohtake and Tanaka place great importance on uniting the Science Tokyo community as a dynamic team while respecting the history and culture of its two predecessor universities. The Town Hall Meetings not only form a crucial step in creating this team mentality, but also bring pressing issues and needs into the open.

This initial series of Town Hall Meetings aimed to deepen mutual understanding across the community while making Science Tokyo a better place through the open sharing of ideas in a free and flat environment. The goal was to share as many thoughts and suggestions as possible, and to uncover hints for improvements based on varying attitudes among faculty and staff. The meetings were facilitated by new Chief Integration Officers (CItgOs) Kaori Iida and Kaoru Kuwata, who lead efforts to unify the Institute and instill Science Tokyo’s core values — including diversity, equity, and inclusion — in the community.

At each meeting, Ohtake and Tanaka introduced Science Tokyo's mission, core values, and the current status, future outlook, and goals of the Institute. In addition, topics discussed at the meetings included the following:

- Science that is unique to Science Tokyo
- Ensuring diversity in research
- Supporting students’ job-hunting activities in the fields of science, engineering, and the medical and dental sciences together, not separately
- Promoting increased research exchanges
- Strengthening of support for new faculty members
- Need to deal with aging facilities and digital transformation
- Strengthening of high school-university collaboration with Institute of Science Tokyo High School
- Policy on outreach and engagement with society
- Learning more about fellow faculty and staff members

A diverse range of participants, including faculty members, administrative and technical staff, and university research administrators (URAs), attended the meetings to share their thoughts, opinions, and intended actions openly with the CEO and CAO. Ohtake and Tanaka responded frankly to the direct questions posed at each meeting, gaining crucial insights into how they can best utilize opinions when designing new systems and policies at Science Tokyo. The main points of the discussions will be shared not only with the Town Hall Meeting participants, but with the entire Science Tokyo community.

While each meeting was scheduled to last one hour, some sessions were extended nearly 30 minutes due to the large number of questions. At the reception held after each Town Hall Meeting, participants engaged not only in dialogue with the CEO and CAO, but also in lively exchanges with each other.

Future Town Hall Meetings will allow constituents to discuss more specific current topics with the CEO and CAO. Upcoming meetings will also be held with particular target groups to allow for more intensive dialogue. Science Tokyo is planning meetings with students as it continues to engage in open discussion that helps uncover yet unseen possibilities within the new community.