With a rapid industrial development and reconstruction, there is strong desire to engineering education to allow Japan to maintain its dominant position in the global industrial world. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology held several sessions during fiscal 2017 that fostered a discussion about new directions in engineering education while implementing systemic reforms that would make the education more flexible. Included in these reforms were the ideas of cross-cutting education, closer ties between undergraduate and graduate courses, and formulating an essential core curriculum for engineering.

Nagoya Institute of Technology has been on the cutting edge of these trends. We formulated a strategy for the development of science and technology professionals in 2014 through close dialogue with industry. It has a goal of the development of professionals with cross-cutting knowledge in broad engineering fields who are able to create new concepts and values, in addition to those with highly specialized knowledge in specific engineering fields heretofore. This strategy resulted in the restructuring of our undergraduate and graduate departments in April 2016. In particular, we have established the Creative Engineering Program — a program that integrates undergraduate and graduate master’s courses and aims to train the former, "value-creation" professionals. This program has already incorporated numerous features required in today's engineering education.

The Creative Engineering Education Center was established to promote the new engineering education. Our mission is preparing educational methods and materials needed by the Creative Engineering Program and evaluating whether we are properly implementing the program and getting the desired results.

We would be pleased if educational resources we provide help promoting the new engineering education in our institute and also other universities.