The International Multidisciplinary Engineering (IME) Graduate Program

Programme overview

A two-year, fully English-taught Master of Engineering programme of the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, for international students living outside Japan. Launched in 1999 as the International Graduate Program in Mechanical-Electrical-Materials Engineering (MEM Program) and expanded into the IME Graduate Program in 2014, it is a single admission programme shared by several engineering departments: applicants apply to IME through the T-cens online system, are admitted directly to a postgraduate degree course, and enrol in one of the participating departments, where lectures and research supervision are conducted entirely in English. For the master's degree the General Application Guidelines list six courses — Mechanical Engineering, Precision Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, Materials Engineering and Chemical System Engineering (Bioengineering participates in IME at doctoral level only). There are three application rounds a year and an applicant may apply only once per year: the July round (April 2027 entry, open only to Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Information Systems and Precision Engineering), the September round (October 2027 entry, the only round that carries the programme's MEXT and IME scholarships) and the January round (October 2027 entry, no scholarships). Selection is by document screening plus, where needed, examinations and interviews conducted by email and Zoom, so applicants never travel to Japan; for every department except Mechanical Engineering the applicant must first obtain an acceptance letter from a prospective supervisor, and a GRE General Test score is required of all applicants.

IME is an admission-and-degree framework shared by six departments of the Graduate School of Engineering for the master's degree. Applicants apply to IME, name one or two prospective supervisors from the IME Academic Staff Lists, and — except in Mechanical Engineering — must obtain that supervisor's acceptance letter before their paper application can be accepted. Once admitted, "All of the students will be enrolled in one of the departments below" and study in the supervisor's laboratory. The degree requires "a minimum of 30 credits including the credits of the core curriculum for the thesis work" in addition to the master's thesis, with the core curriculum (laboratory work and seminar credits) fixed by department, the remaining credits set departmentally, an approved thesis, and a comprehensive oral examination. "The Department offers two types of courses for graduate students, lectures given in English and Japanese. There are a wide variety of courses offered in other departments. Each student should develop an individual program of course study under the guidance of his or her supervising professor."

Important facts