Kazuo Kumagai
Chairman
The Kurata Memorial Hitachi Science and Technology Foundation, named after Chikara Kurata, Hitachi’s second president, was established in 1967 to promote science and technology in Japan.
In the intervening 40 years, Japan has become a major power in science and technology areas in which it continues to make contributions to meet expectations that are higher than ever before.
In recent years, nations around the world have been promoting science and technology in a wide range of fields with the aim of achieving innovation-driven economic progress. Basic research is the cornerstone of future technological progress, and as such, continues to grow in importance. Japan is considered to lead the world in many areas of science and technology. However, this is mostly due to improvements and application development. Japan still has a long way to go with respect to the discovery of principles, the formulation of theories and other aspects of basic science.
Today, at the start of a new century, in addition to its fine achievements in the development of practical technology and production technology, Japan has to emphasize basic research and foster R&D that allows researchers to give free rein to their creative ideas. Hitachi will continue to support and promote creative research into science and technology that helps improve people’s lives and makes a contribution to the international community.
The Hitachi Group is working to enrich people’s lives and to make the world a better place, as symbolized by our corporate motto, "Inspire the Next." The activities of the Kurata Memorial Hitachi Science and Technology Foundation are a part of these broad-based endeavors of the Hitachi Group.
