As part of our contributions to the local community in the 2009 academic year, we have made efforts to create a system that can accurately grasp the local issues, strengthen our initiatives that aim to resolve such issues, create a system that makes recommendations and policy proposals to the community, and publically announce the findings of our research.
With regard to grasping the local issues, meetings with executives from the prefecture and the university were held to exchange ideas, a communication conference was held with local authorities under a cooperation agreement, and joint research and projects in the Faculty of Social Welfare were conducted with the community.
Examples of our efforts to resolve local issues include accepting new academic research funding, opening the Takizawa Village IPU Innovation Center in May, and the Industry-University-Government Joint Research Base Project which was proposed by the university, prefecture, and industrial world and was adopted by JST.
With regard to establishing a system that makes recommendations and policy proposals, we have interacted with local companies and municipalities through the IPU Community Planning Plaza, a debriefing session took place to announce the findings of the Morioka City Community Planning Institute, and seminars and presentations were held regarding the 2009 regional development and contribution activities.
As part of our effort to actively announce our research findings, the Iwate Prefectural University Research Presentation Conference was held, findings were announced at the “8th Industry-University-Government Collaboration Promotion Conference” hosted by the Cabinet Office, and a research findings webpage was set up.

We are supporting the efforts of utilizing the university’s intellectual properties to contribute to the local area by holding extension courses and visiting lectures.

As a part of regional collaborative activities, our university’s teaching staff assumes positions as members of prefectural committees and advisory bodies, and teaches at lectures hosted by various organizations. The numbers of appointments and dispatched lecturers between the 2007 and the 2009 academic years are shown in the table below.