The origin of Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST) dates back to 1959 when the National University of Mongolia opened engineering programs, and it became the Polytechnic Institute in 1969 and MUST in 2001. Currently 37,800 students, including 3,400 graduate students, are enrolled in MUST, and it has the School of Materials Science which consists of Department of Materials Science, Department of Chemical Technology, and Department of Physics. Approximately two thirds of the academically educated Mongolians have graduated from MUST. The relationship between MUST and Japan has been strong. More than 40 Japanese universities and institutes have concluded comprehensive collaborative agreement with MUST, and many MUST faculty members have gained their degrees from Japanese universities.
NIMS hosted a MUST delegation in March 2014 headed by Prof. Munkhbaatar (Director, School of Materials Science). A strong wish to cooperate with NIMS, including exchange of graduate students, was expressed by Prof. Munkhbaatar, which has successively resulted in the signing of the CCA. Moreover, earlier in March 2013 Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe visited Mongolia and launched the “Erch (vitality) Initiative” which stresses enhancement of the higher education function for technologies in Mongolia. NIMS hopes to contribute to the realization of the “Erch Initiative” through the CCA with MUST.
Mongolia, very rich in natural resources, is pushing education as a national policy so that future enhancement and development of materials science would be highly expected. International Cooperative Graduate Program is also under consideration now. With these two agreements, we can expect a very active collaboration between NIMS and MUST, and furthermore enhanced cooperation between the materials science societies in Mongolia and Japan can be foreseen.
