Atsuko Tōyama

Tōyama Atsuko (遠山 敦子; born 10 December 1938) is a Japanese former bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology. She is a trustee of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the head of the Mt. Fuji World Heritage Center in Shizuoka.

Early life and education Toyama was born in Kuwana, Mie, Japan. She grew up in Shizuoka. She graduated from Tokyo University.

Career After graduation in 1962 Toyama joined the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology. She was one of the first women to become a bureaucrat there, rising quickly to head departments and bureaus. and the director of the National Museum of Western Art in April 2000.

Toyama was the Minister of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology in the first Koizumi Cabinet in 2001. She worked there for two and a half years, until 2003. During her tenure Toyama released a plan to reform Japan's national universities by reorganizing internal structures and make thirty of Japan's universities "world-class". There were also changes to how researchers obtain funding, including the newly established "Centers of Excellence", which made academic departments compete for funding. The "Toyama plan" was built on work that she had done during her previous government work. Toyama also taught at the National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies.

In April 2013 Toyama was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun.

In 2017 she became the head of the Mt. Fuji World Heritage Center in Shizuoka. Toyama is also a trustee of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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