The Priority Organization for Innovation and Excellence was established to contribute to the enhancement and development of educational research activities at Kumamoto University. It does so by enriching and improving the graduate schools, and by promoting the world’s most advanced COE (Center of Excellence) Studies Program; a highly evaluated program that encompasses life science, natural science, social and cultural sciences and interdisciplinary, multiple, or new disciplines base on organic cooperation between the fundamental sciences and the applied sciences. This has brought the creation of the new COE, a new research center and several new graduate courses (majors).