The 10th SPSJ International Polymer Conference

Tsukuba is a city in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. It is known as the location of the Tsukuba Science City, a planned city developed in the 1960s. Mount Tsukuba, particularly well known for its toad-shaped Shinto shrine, is located near the city. Tsukuba is a twin city of Irvine, California, Milpitas, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States of America.

Beginning in the 1960s, the area was designated for development. Construction of the city centre, the University of Tsukuba and 46 public basic scientific research laboratories began in the 1970s. The city became operational in the 1980s to stimulate scientific discovery. Its constituent municipalities were administratively united in 1987. By the year 2000, the city's 60 national research institutes and two universities had been grouped into five zones: higher education and training, construction research, physical science and engineering research, biological and agricultural research, and common (public) facilities. These zones were surrounded by more than 240 private research facilities. Among the most prominent institutions are the University of Tsukuba (1973; formerly Tokyo University of Education); the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK); the Electrotechnical Laboratory; the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory; and the National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research. The city has an international flair, with about 3,000 foreign students and researchers from as many as 90 countries living in Tsukuba at any one time.