In April 2020, the Tokai National University System (hereinafter referred to as the Tokai System) was born as a new national university corporation under the single-corporation multiple-university system for the first time in Japan, due to the merger of Gifu University and Nagoya University across prefectures. Behind this integration was a sense of crisis about the situation of national universities in Japan. In a nutshell, there was a sense of crisis that there would be no future development as an extension of what national universities had been up until then, and that there would only be a decline in their international presence. If there is no sustainable development and presence, the impact on the social contribution and humanity contribution that is the mission of national universities will be small. You will fall into a vicious circle.

In order to break this vicious cycle, both universities had a serious discussion about the need to have the courage to take the first step towards change. At the same time, the encouragement they received from stakeholders outside the university, such as industry, the national government, and local governments, to start building a new university was also a great motivation for the integration. In addition, the Tokai region, where both universities are located, has a history of success as one of the world's leading centers of the manufacturing industry. It was also a big reason that they had Academia alone cannot change everything. Since they live in an era in which all sectors must change on their own and work together to transform society as a whole, as the first penguin, they must first tackle the transformation ourselves, enhance the power of academia, and contribute to the creation of the future society. There was only a desire to realize the integration aimed at. Looking at the spread of the movement toward university integration since the start of the Tokai System, they believe that it has had a major impact on other universities as a precedent for integration.