The Institute of Science Tokyo, a university to be created this fall with the merger of the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), will reapply for a grant from a ¥10 trillion ($62.6 billion) government fund to become a world-class university, its president-elect said Monday.

Naoto Ohtake, selected last week to take on the role of the inaugural president, also said he would strengthen efforts to internationalize the new university, known by its abbreviated name Science Tokyo. It aims to have international students make up 30% of all undergraduate science and engineering majors by 2050. Currently, foreign undergraduates make up 0.8% at TMDU and 4.9% at Tokyo Tech.

Ohtake, a material science specialist, was one of three candidates for the role picked by a selection committee in April that consisted of experts from inside and outside the two universities. The other two candidates were Yujiro Tanaka, the current president of TMDU, and Kazuya Masu, the current president of Tokyo Tech.

Once he receives approval from the education ministry, Ohtake will start his 3½-year stint on Oct. 1.

“We will aim to be a world-class university by conducting educational, research and medical activities with physical and mental leeway amid the tough, internationally competitive environment,” he told a news conference on Monday.

The merger is part of the two national universities’ efforts to win grants from the government endowment fund established in 2022 known as the Universities for International Research Excellence program.

The fund, which uses returns from its investments in financial products for disbursements, much like how overseas universities operate endowments, last year selected Tohoku University as its first recipient. Tohoku University edged out two other better-known rivals who were shortlisted — the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.

Tohoku University is expected to receive around ¥10 billion this year, with additional funding to follow in the coming years.

Tokyo Tech and TMDU had jointly applied to become the fund's first recipient but failed. A total of 10 institutions responded to the fund's call for applications, including Waseda University, Nagoya University and Osaka University.

The education ministry, which manages the fund, is likely to start accepting applications for a second grant within this fiscal year, which runs through March 2025.

In its second bid for a slice of the university fund, Science Tokyo will leverage its unique governance structure and its idea of creating “convergence science” that combines the strengths of both its predecessors in fields ranging from engineering, medicine and dentistry to philosophy and social sciences, Ohtake said.

To achieve a smooth merger, Science Tokyo will have a five-pronged governance structure, Ohtake said. This structure includes a president, a chief medical officer, a chief financial officer, a chief integration officer and a new provost position that will be created to strengthen the management and operation of the merged entity.

Ohtake said that he wants to appoint TMDU's Tanaka to be Science Tokyo’s provost.

While Tokyo Tech and TMDU are counted among Japan's top-ranked institutions of higher learning, they are smaller than many of their peers. Tokyo Tech has about 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, while TMDU has about 3,000 students.

These are in comparison to the University of Tokyo's 28,000 students, Kyoto University's 23,000 students, Waseda University’s 47,000 students and Keio’s University's 33,000 students.

About 2,100 of Tokyo Tech and TMDU's combined total number of students hail from overseas.