Crossover Alliance to Create the Future
with People, Intelligence and Materials Crossover Alliance

Two years have passed since the 3rd phase of the collaborative network of five research institutes across Japan (first phase: 2010-2015, second phase: 2016-2021) began in April 2022 as the "Crossover Alliance to Create the Future with People, Intelligence, and Materials" (headquartered at IMRAM, the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University). The Crossover Alliance established the CORE² Collaboration Center within the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials at Tohoku University as part of organizational reforms aimed at improving research capabilities, and a full-time faculty member oversees its operation to promote the Alliance projects. The CORE² Collaboration Center will continue to play a central role in the research activities of the five research institutes, while taking advantage of their individuality and aiming for research activities with originality unique to an inter-university collaborative organization.

The Alliance Business is characterized by the “sharing of human resources, equipment, and locations” within the five laboratories, and is committed to the realization of a society that enables a safe, secure, and high quality of life in the 21st century. Three ongoing problem-solving projects, 1) Electronics Materials and Devices (G1), 2) Environmental Energy Materials, Devices and Processes (G2), and 3) Bio functional Materials, Devices and Systems (G3), have been strategically established to promote cross-institute collaborative research. In addition to the G1-G3 groups mentioned above, the 4) Group on Information, Mathematical and Artificial Intelligence (GC) was established in April 2022 and is working to solve social issues through crossover among the groups.

From April 2024, the organization within the CORE² Collaboration Center will be reorganized and a new “Alliance Tokyo Satellite” will be established within the Tokyo Institute of Technology (now：Institute of Science Tokyo) Research Institute of Chemistry to (1) establish issue-based programs to solve social issues, (2) work toward industry-academia collaboration, (3) build a platform for industry-academia collaboration, (4) secure its own financial resources for solving social issues, etc., and (5) return bottom-up research results to society. To give back the results of bottom-up research to society, the “Alliance Tokyo Satellite” will be established within the Research Institute of Chemical Biology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and two additional full-time faculty members will be assigned to promote the Alliance Project under a system capable of supporting the research of as many as 400 faculty members.

This is a unique large-scale joint research center and crossover alliance project in which five national university research institutes mutually collaborate and network in their respective fields of expertise to build a complementary and cooperative system and is expected to make a significant contribution to the realization of a safe, secure, and high quality of life in society. It is expected to make a significant contribution to the realization of a safe, secure, and high quality of life.

In the Alliance Program, we will not only strengthen the research capabilities of our member institutes, invigorate the entire domestic and international research community, and support future-oriented and challenging research, but also promote initiatives for new industry-academia collaborations. We respect the diversity of research and actively support research that is full of potential. We hope that many researchers in Japan and abroad will take advantage of this Alliance project and use it to crossover their research activities.