Following the completion of former President Yoshihisa Baba’s term, I have been newly appointed to serve as the President of Soka University. Based on the founding spirit of the University founder Daisaku Ikeda, I will do my utmost to realize his vision in cooperation with the students, faculty, staff, and all persons connected with the university to achieve further dynamic development as a global hub for humanistic education.

Soka University celebrated its 50th anniversary in April last year and launched a new mid-to-long-term plan, Soka University Grand Design 2021-2030, towards 2030. In particular, we have been taking initiatives to build a diverse campus as part of the “Top Global University Project” was initiated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and received the highest evaluation of “S” two consecutive times for the midterm evaluations. In addition, the University was able to improve our ranking to 351-400th overall (tied 58th in Japan) in the QS Asia University Rankings. We were also able to successfully finish our 50th-anniversary projects such as the “Value Creation x SDGs” event series with the cooperation of many people.

In the field of research, we have been putting efforts into activities that contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, such as advancing human glycome research which is one of the nation’s prioritized academic research projects, and conducting international joint research in Ethiopia to build a sustainable society in developing countries. In addition, the achievements of our students were remarkable even in the midst of the pandemic. Besides winning the RoboCup 2021 league championship, students have participated in various business contests and international conferences, contributed to the local community, and demonstrated the results of their daily activities in a variety of fields including certification exams, music, and sports.

This year will be the second year of the new Grand Design. While continuing to uphold the founding principles and traditions, we will steadily promote initiatives in the four fields of “education,” “research,” “SDGs,” and “diversity” under the theme of “a university that fosters ‘global citizens’ that can create value”, and foster global citizens who have the ability to continue learning in response to all kinds of changes and contribute to the well-being of others. Moreover, we will make further efforts in education and research to develop the potential of each student on our diverse campus.