With this project, we will establish an internationally renowned research base for creating new devices with new functions. In addition, we will recruit highly motivated, high-quality candidates through our branding strategies. By exposing our students to Meijo University's world-class research on optical devices and encouraging them to participate in the joint research with businesses, it will foster quality human resources who will play significant roles in society after graduating from the university. This will lead Meijo University to gain a great reputation and result in a positive spiral for recruiting more promising candidates and increasing the brand value of Meijo University.

As regards research activities, continuing on from the previous year, by introducing new equipment and accepting new researchers, we will move forward with building the kind of research base necessary to establish core techniques for new devices with new functions and for new fields. Another goal is to realize semiconductor lasers with an unprecedented 200 nm wavelength.
We will also have an open recruitment drive for university-wide application research. As for branding strategies, we will improve our website and showrooms, hold symposia open to the general public, and plan to perform mock lectures and experiments for the communities in the wider social context as well as at elementary, junior high, and high schools.

With the introduction of new crystal growth equipment and the employment of postdoctoral researchers, we achieved many "world's bests" and "world's firsts" by further improving the world's highest output with a violet surface emitting laser, etc. Our students also worked on a project which received an Award for Excellence from the Japan Society of Applied Physics. These results fueled our research.

Our project overviews and achievements were posted on our website and announced at the symposium," Nanomaterials and Optical devices for Changing the World." to the general public on Mar 22, 2018.
According to articles published by FROMPAGE CO., Ltd., Meijo University was ranked as the most attractive university in the Chubu region for two consecutive years, demonstrating our strong presence not only in the Chubu region but in the Hokuriku and Koshinetsu regions. Furthermore, as a result of an open recruitment on campus for application research in various fields, three projects from the Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, and Faculty of Business Management were adopted, and the progress of these projects was announced at the symposium.

Evaluations in interview and written form were conducted on May 1, 2018. For the written evaluation, we had a percentage score of 86.8, representing "Excellent." For the evaluation by interview, two presentations were given beforehand. One was by our partner corporation on the future visions and branding strategies of the university, and the other was by Associate Professor, Iwaya Motoaki, who joined the project. Following their presentations, we had 8 votes for A (Excellent) and 2 votes for B (Good). Based on this result, our achievements were highly evaluated.

External evaluation regarding the business projects in 2017 was conducted on May 21, 2018 by the university researchers, cooperate engineers, and committee members from the industry.
For the written evaluation, we had a percentage score of 80.2 and were assessed as "Excellent." They were pleased with the fact that our general outlines of the projects were excellent and matched with the strategies of the university. They also valued the contents and the methods of introducing the information.

In regard to the research activities, some committee members gave high evaluations on the basis that the research activities were well planned and the outcomes were satisfactory, but others pointed out that they couldn't see any clear achievement based upon the PDCA cycle, and thus suggested that the plans should be reviewed thoroughly.

For the evaluation by interview, two presentations were made. One was by our partner corporation on the future visions and branding strategies of the university, and the other was by Associate Professor, Iwaya Motoaki, on research sections, who joined the project. Following these presentations, there were 4 votes for A (Excellent), three votes for B (Good) and one vote for C (Insufficient). Based on this result, our achievements were highly recognized.

According to the opinions of the committee members, the branding strategy was highly recognized since it was carried out intensively and multilaterally following the analysis of Meijo university's strength.
The research also deserves high evaluation concerning the improvement of the world record with the violet surface emitting lasers.

On the contrary, there were some opinions that the improvement of our website and the outcome in terms of the PDCA cycle were not clear. Therefore, in accordance with our project expansions in FY2018, we agreed that the research branding project implementation committee will address the issues for further improvement.

Total funds for FY2017 were 159,955,000 yen and actual expenditure was 159,677,000 yen. The percentage of budget implementation was 99.8% (including the budget for research on three software applications). The main usages were as follows:

Purchase of gallium nitride metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy equipment (119,988,000yen) / Salary for Postdoctoral researchers (4,744,000yen) / Building a monument (1,988,000yen) / Building an English website (1,088,000yen) / Admissions and traveling expenses for the international conferences (France, China, Denmark, etc.) (1,053,000yen)