Kyushu University is a Japanese public university located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu. It is one of Japan’s National Seven Universities and is among the largest institutions of higher education in the country. The university was founded in 1903 as the Fourth Higher School, and was renamed Kyushu Imperial University in 1911 following its merger with First Higher School and Second Higher School. Kyushu University is a comprehensive research university with eleven faculties, seventeen graduate schools, and six research institutes. The university offers bachelors’, masters’, doctoral, and professional degrees in various disciplines including engineering, medicine, science, liberal arts and law. As of 2019, there are approximately 19000 students enrolled at Kyushu University across all campuses.
Kyushu University has produced numerous Nobel laureates throughout its history including Yukawa Hideki (Physics), Oe Kenzaburo (Literature), Inouye Shinichi (Economics), Maekawa Sumio (Chemistry), Leo Esaki (Physics) ,and Toyoda Kiichiro (Inventor of the Toyota Production System). The university has also been home to many groundbreaking scientific discoveries such as that of artificial radioactivity by Hahnemann and Strassmann in 1938, which paved the way for nuclear weapons development during World War II. More recently, researchers at Kyushu University have made significant contributions to fields such as nanotechnology, materials science, biochemistry/genetics & cell biology.