In 2014, the School of Science at the University of Tokyo introduced an all-English undergraduate transfer program called Global Science Course (GSC). In the fall of 2012 and for the first time, the University of Tokyo started two undergraduate programs entirely taught in English and geared toward international students-Programs in English at Komaba (PEAK)-the International Program on Japan in East Asia and the International Program on Environmental Sciences. The university is steadily closing the gender gap, and by April 2021, half of its directors were women. Comparing the number of professors in May 2020, there are 108 women among the 1,298 professors, which has almost doubled. These institutions were government offices established by the 徳川幕府 Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867), and played an important role in the importation and translation of books from Europe.Īccording to The Japan Times, the university had 1,282 professors in February 2012. With the start of the new university system in 1949, Todai swallowed up the former First Higher School (today's Komaba campus) and the former Tokyo Higher School, which thenceforth assumed the duty of teaching first- and second-year undergraduates, while the faculties on Hongo main campus took care of third- and fourth-year students.Īlthough the university was founded during the Meiji period, it has earlier roots in the Astronomy Agency (天文方 1684), Shoheizaka Study Office (昌平坂学問所 1797), and the Western Books Translation Agency (蕃書和解御用 1811). In 1947 after Japan's defeat in World War II it re-assumed its original name. The books were the former possessions of Hoshino Hisashi before becoming part of the library of the university and were mainly about Chinese philosophy and history. The books lost included the Hoshino Library ( 星野文庫, Hoshino bunko), a collection of about 10,000 books. In September 1923, an earthquake and the following fires destroyed about 750,000 volumes of the Imperial University Library.
It was renamed "the Imperial University ( 帝國大學, Teikoku daigaku)" in 1886, and then Tokyo Imperial University ( 東京帝國大學, Tōkyō teikoku daigaku) in 1897 when the Imperial University system was created.
The university was chartered by the Meiji government in 1877 under its current name by amalgamating older government schools for medicine, various traditional scholars and modern learning. įaculty of Law building in 1902, before its destruction by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake As of 2021, University of Tokyo's alumni, faculty members and researchers include seventeen Prime Ministers, 18 Nobel Prize laureates, four Pritzker Prize laureates, five astronauts, and a Fields Medalist. It is considered to be the most selective and prestigious university in Japan. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. In particular, the number of privately funded international students, who account for more than 80%, has increased 1.75 times in the 10 years since 2010, and the university is focusing on supporting international students. UTokyo has ten faculties, 15 graduate schools and enrolls about 30,000 students, about 4,200 of whom are international students. Established in 1877, the university is the first Imperial University and currently selected as a Top Type university of Top Global University Project by the Japanese government. The University of Tokyo ( 東京大学, Tōkyō daigaku), abbreviated as Todai ( 東大, Tōdai) or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan.