Background to the Establishment of the New Major|Department of Ocean Technology,Policy, and Environment Graduate School,The University of Tokyo

Background to the Establishment of the New Major

Comprehensive efforts are required for the creation of new marine industry and the preservation and creation of marine environment.

With the conclusion of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, our country has large continental shelves and jurisdictional exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which is approximately 4,470,000 km2, about 12 times our national land, and the sixth largest in the world. Through use of this large oceanic space, it is expected to strengthen drastically the basis of resources of food, mineral, and energy, and at the same time to solve environmental issues. Although these efforts require a intensive and comprehensive promotion policy by the government based on a broad perspective and long-term national benefits, including technology policy, the reality is that our country lags behind other countries.

Considering the importance of technology development in these oceanic spaces, we think that it is necessary to drastically strengthen the governmental efforts to serve the infrastructure of education and research and to promote industrialization through the activities of increasing investment for R&D, creating R&D systems, and implementing measures to provide support for commercialization by national actions for essential technology (National Mission-Oriented Technology) that goes beyond the jurisdiction of related agencies, instead of proposing strategies based on the existing compartmentalized government departments.