OIST is a university with no departments, eliminating artificial barriers between people working in different fields, but many nationalities, with students and faculty being attracted from all over the world. Concentrating initially on Chemistry, Environmental and Ecological Sciences, Marine Sciences, Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, Neuroscience, Physics, and Engineering and Applied Science, OIST is bringing some of the best minds in the world to Okinawa to transform the way science and education are done in the global academic world.