At the Administration Center of the University of Tukuba, on October 3rd, 2012, a cooperation agreement between University of Tsukuba and Namegata City concerning their joint research in agriculture, food and health was concluded.

University of Tsukuba and Namegata City agreed on this cooperation agreement; so with each other’s cooperation, they aim to adequately deal with the challenges the community faces and to contribute to the construction and the development of an active and unique local community.

Namegata City advocates, “Namegata, Advanced Prevention of Health Risks to Create a Healthy Society”. It places “health” as the central factor for the promotion of “sixth industry”, aims to regionally vitalize with “agriculture and food” for the citizens and visitors, to create a structure where “exercise” and “recreation” are offered as health services, and to utilize University of Tsukuba’s intellectual property to carry out a wide area of industry-academia-government-citizen collaboration.

At the agreement ceremony, the university’s Vice-President Kazuhiko Shimizu stated, “ We expect that our university’s intellectual property, including our research results will be put into effective use by Namegata City, who’s industrial base is agricultural forestry industries and fishers, and tries to vitalize the region with the support of commercial and industrial association for societal impacts and social contribution.” Also, Mayor of Namegata City, Kouichi Ito stated, “Due to our cooperation agreement, many students and staffs of University of Tsukuba has visited Namegata City and I have high hopes for the young generations to actively interact with each other.”

Photograph of Vice-President Kazuhiko Shimizu and Mayor of Namegata City Kouichi Ito (from right) with the cooperation agreement.