“Building a Better Future with Science” is the spirit upon which Tokyo University of Science (TUS) was founded. Accordingly, the university is committed to creating drastic social value for the future, while leveraging science as well as the connections formed through education and research at TUS.
TUSIDE – a startup ecosystem formed by the TUS Organization for Innovation and Social Collaboration – enthusiastically stands behind this vision, and is also committed to continuously working more closely with all stakeholders of society.

ACHIEVEMENTS


TUS is home to a number of university-developed startups that strive to socially implement their science – a collection of their research results and ideas – cultivated by faculty, students, and alumni as well as industrial, governmental, and academic partners.

No. of TUS-developed startups

AY 2023

191

Certified TUS-developed startups

 Jan. 2025

15

ABOUT US

MESSAGE

President, Tokyo University of Science

Masatoshi Ishikawa

Toward the Creation of Future Social Value

Tokyo University of Science will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2031. To keep the university’s traditions alive and thriving at that point and beyond, it is essential that we keep pioneering new fields in science and technology, as we strive to create novel value, recognizing that all our past accomplishments in education, research, and social value creation are inseparably intertwined.

In 2022, when the Organization for Innovation and Social Collaboration was established under my direct purview as TUS President, it symbolized my strong commitment to such vision. The talent and the achievements in science and technology that are produced by TUS through its education and research programs only bear fruit when they are implemented in, and contribute to, society and become social value, thereby facilitating social reforms. Such social value creation is a duty of universities like ours to society, and the Organization for Innovation and Social Collaboration plays the lead role in making sure this duty is fulfilled.

In addition, as is clear from TUS’s founding spirit of “Building a Better Future with Science,” the unique breed of entrepreneurship seen here is part of the university’s time-honored tradition. While it has become increasingly popular to support startups or engage in entrepreneurial endeavors, TUS has a long history of incubating university-developed startups, and is one of the best performers among all universities nationwide in terms of entrepreneurial achievements. TUSIDE – the university’s startup ecosystem developed in partnership with its group companies – has also been producing results as an integral part of the university, so I have high hopes that TUSIDE will make progressively greater achievements.

TUS passionately supports all your endeavors toward social reforms through social value creation.

NOTE:The movies below are in Japanese Only.

Past President, Licensing Executive Society International (LESI)
Co-founder, NanoCarrier Co., Ltd. (currently NANO MRNA)

Ichiro Nakatomi, Ph.D.

Just go for it!
Harnessing TUS’s comprehensive capabilities

An alumnus of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at TUS, I fondly remember my time there, when the school was still located at the Kagurazaka Campus and post-war student activism was in full swing. After graduating TUS, I attended and completed a master’s program at a university in Boston, U.S.A., before I came back to Japan and started working for a domestic pharmaceutical company. Still yearning to return to the life that I had experienced in the U.S., however, I took a leap of faith, quit my job, and joined a small university-incubated startup that had just been formed in Salt Lake City, as a member of its business development team.
During that time my entrepreneurial spirit was awakened. Over the ensuing decade or so, I became involved in a variety of entrepreneurial activities, including product development, contract negotiation and execution with the largest players in the industry, an IPO on NASDAQ, plant construction, product sales, sale of shares to major companies, exercising of stock options, etc. Leveraging all those experiences, I later founded and started running my own company back in Japan, called NANO CARRIER (currently renamed NANO MRNA). I also served as officer and chair of an international IP and business association, which gave me opportunities to experience first-hand innovative enterprises, IP-related ideas, successes, disputes, settlements, and so forth.

I still continue to interact with a number of entrepreneurs today, and “Just go for it!” is what I usually say to them early in our conversations. That being said, compared to the U.S. where people have easy access to business education and are surrounded by many entrepreneurs in a supportive environment, with abundant human resources and funding, the startup environment in Japan appears rather barren. That’s why I think the only way we can thrive somehow under the circumstances is to rally our collective capabilities as a team, in this group-based competition. In other words, as far as TUS is concerned, it is crucial that the university optimizes coordination among its science, engineering, and pharmaceutical arms, supports its startups in team-based efforts while also involving alumni, to ensure that their corporate strategy and growth performance are all sound, by establishing an organization dedicated to accomplishing these goals. While many people talk about their exit strategies, with success being the endgame, whether a business can achieve a successful outcome is actually determined by the soundness of its business initiation and process. I believe that it is crucial for us to create a supportive environment for entrepreneurs such that they are not afraid of their failures in business and are encouraged to implement ideas born of their free-thinking minds in their entry strategies. Such entrepreneurial opportunities can be created at the initiative of the government and universities. I hope this vision will materialize, and one day all those engaged in their entrepreneurial endeavors will be able to reach their respective goals, and pump their fists and shout with joy, “We did it!”

NOTE:The movies below are in Japanese Only.

University-developed startup support

Tasked with creating university-developed startups and facilitating their growth, the startup creation & growth support and community-based initiative department of the TUS Organization for Innovation and Social Collaboration conducts a broad range of support activities. If you are interested in startups or aspire to become an entrepreneur, please take advantage of the services we offer.

At the TUS Organization for Innovation and Social Collaboration, our job is to support faculty and students who are leveraging their research results and ideas to solve challenging social issues, while facilitating the creation and growth of university-developed startups. Please feel free to contact us about any inquiry you may have.
Click the link below for more information on the TUS Organization for Innovation and Social Collaboration, including its vision and structure, support menu, and its far-reaching support offered through the university’s own unique ecosystem TUSIDE* for all alumni and research partners.

*TUSIDE=Tokyo University of Science Innovation Driven Ecosystem

CONTACT US