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Outline of RCES

Schematic diagram of research conducted at RCES.
Click the schematic diagram and picture of the cherry blossom tree.

The tree in front of the RCES building is our favorite cherry blossom tree. The tree is the first cherry blossom tree to bloom in Tegata campus of Akita University.

Research Center for Engineering Science (RCES) affiliated to the Graduate School of Engineering and Resource Science in Akita University was established in 2014, by renaming from the Center for Geo-Environmental Science (CGES) established in 2006. Its history goes back to the Research Institute of Underground Resources founded under the Akita Mining College in 1948. The name of the original institute was changed to the Research Institute of Natural Resources in 1986 and to Research Institute of Materials and Resources in 1996. These predecessors to RCES (and CGES) made significant contributions to the research on prospecting, exploitation, and utilization of natural resources and also to the development of new functional materials.
RCES (CGES) was established to pursue comprehensive research aimed both at a sustainable recycling society and at developing new functional materials to maintain a better global environment associated with harmonious coexistence of nature and human beings.

Its primary research goals are to:

1. Clarify the role of material circulation mechanisms in the global system and develop environment-friendly sophisticated uses for untapped resources (Global environment),

2. Conduct multidisciplinary research for providing autonomous local communities with resources and energy systems (Sustainable regional resource management),

3. Use nature and simulation to design low environmental load material processes and new functions (Environmentally conscious material processes), and

4. Synergistically interlink medicine and engineering in the use of emerging nano-functional capabilities (Synergy between bioscience and engineering).

RCES’ faculty (formally) consists of four professors, four associate professors and a number of foreign and Japanese visiting professors, plus technical officials and office staffs. Several post doctoral researchers and research investigators also contribute to the vigorous research activities. About twenty Japanese and foreign students receive training and carry out research at the Center under the guidance of professors in accordance with the master’s and doctoral degree programs.