Heizo Takenaka, who served as a Cabinet minister and key architect of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's economic reforms, has returned to Keio University to take the post of research institute head, sources said Thursday.
Takenaka, 55, who took the portfolios of economic and fiscal policy minister as well as internal affairs and communications minister in Koizumi's Cabinet, has become a professor heading the university's Global Security Research Institute, the sources said.
The institute conducts research in a variety of fields, including technological innovation, as well as energy and environmental issues.
Takenaka is the only person who served as a Cabinet member throughout Koizumi's five years and five months in office.
He had previously been an economics professor at Keio University before being picked by Koizumi as economic and fiscal policy minister in April 2001 when his first Cabinet was launched.
Takenaka doubled as financial services minister from 2002. He was then appointed internal affairs and communications minister in October 2005.
He was elected to the Upper House in 2004 but resigned from the Diet when Shinzo Abe replaced Koizumi as prime minister in September. At that time, Takenaka said he would continue to make policy proposals as an ordinary citizen.
