The Town & Gown Initiative (TGI) is a concept in which a university and the local government of the administrative area that said university is located in (hereafter, “the parties”) work together to achieve sustainable development of the region and betterment of the university in order to energize Japan at the regional level. The parties pursue such goals by sharing the same vision for a sustainable future, whereby they attempt to establish a comprehensive, interactive, ongoing, and systematic relationship with each other, while also integrating and sharing administrative resources from the local government and research/educational resources from the university. In so doing, the parties will create a “place of co-creation in the region^＊”, which aims to facilitate social implementation of science and technology innovations as well as human resource cultivation, all of which help to solve regional issues, leading to the realization of regional development.

_{(＊) An industry-academia-government-private partnership ecosystem in which a local government, a university, private companies, entrepreneurs and investors, and citizens collaborate with each other.}

The Higashi-Hiroshima City and Hiroshima University Town & Gown Initiative is an initiative where the local government of the City and the University (hereafter, “the parties”) share the same concept for their visions for a sustainable future and are committed to establishing a comprehensive, interactive, ongoing, and systematic relationship so that the parties can pursue sustainable development of the City and betterment of the University, while achieving regional development by integrating and sharing the administrative resources of the City and research/educational resources of the University.

Based on the Town & Gown concept above, the following initiatives will be undertaken:

• Promoting social implementation of science and technology innovations and human resource development, which will contribute to solving regional issues.
• Creation of a “place of co-creation in the region”, which will serve as an industry-academia-government-private partnership ecosystem, entailing collaboration between private companies, entrepreneurs, investors and citizens.

For the future

• We will build partnerships and cooperative relationships with local governments and universities that agree with our objectives, and aim to realize regional development through the promotion of the Town & Gown concept in each region, while expanding the circle of co-creation for sustainable regional development and the evolution of universities.