History

The Department of Material Chemistry was inaugurated in 1993 in a reorganization that focused its activities on the graduate school. The Department's predecessor was the Department of Industrial Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering.

The Department of Industrial Chemistry was established within the Kyoto Imperial University College of Science and Engineering as a department with four chemistry chairs, and in September of the following year two courses were inaugurated: Pure Chemistry and Manufacturing Chemistry. Subsequently, in September 1914 the College of Science and Engineering was split into the College of Science (the predecessor of the Faculty of Science) and the College of Engineering (the predecessor of the Faculty of Engineering) and became the Department of Industrial Chemistry, College of Engineering

The Department of Industrial Chemistry has at all times embraced and supported promising young professors, fulfilling its role as a mother organization that has given birth to the Department of Fuel Chemistry (later renamed the Department of Hydrocarbon Chemistry), the Department of Textile Chemistry (renamed the Department of Polymer Chemistry), and the Department of Synthetic Chemistry (renamed the Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry).

We take great pride in the fact that, over the years, the Department of Industrial Chemistry has produced many leaders who have contributed to corporations, universities, and research institutions in Japan and around the world in the fields of basic and applied chemistry.