Tohoku University (東北大学 (東北帝國大學 prior to 1945), Tōhoku daigaku), abbreviated to Tohokudai (東北大, Tōhokudai), located in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in the Tōhoku Region, Japan, is a Japanese national university. It is the third oldest Imperial University in Japan and is a member of the National Seven Universities. The university had 10 faculties and 15 graduate schools with a total of 17,949 students in 2009. The spirits of its foundation are based on 3 core values "Research First(研究第一主義)", "Open-door(門戸開放)"and "Practice-Oriented Research and Education(実学尊重)" principles. It is considered as one of the top universities in Japan, and one of the top 50 universities in the world. In 2009, Tohoku University was one of 13 universities selected by the Japanese government to lead the internationalisation of higher education in Japan. This venture, known as the Global 30 Project, takes the form of new international degree courses taught wholly in English, at both undergraduate and graduate level. At Tohoku University, this initiative is known as the Future Global Leadership Program (FGL).