Leo Esaki became the president of the University of Tsukuba in 1992. His presidency marked a new era of reform for the Tsukuba Science City. Leo Esaki is a Nobel prize winner and worked at IBM prior to becoming president of the University of Tsukuba. Unlike other Japanese university presidents he had no academic background and no former ties with the University of Tsukuba. This was part of the reason why he was chosen as president. Due to his history in the corporate world, he was able to create a climate were companies and graduate students could work together closely. When the university was founded a good relationship between the students of the university and the nearby companies was expected. However, over the years this ambition disappeared into the background. In these years there was a severe lack in interaction between the facilities of the University and the private companies in the area. This meant that there was no joint research happening. In July 1994, Esaki introduced Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance (TARA). This is a partnership between the university, foreign researchers, Tsukuba's national research labs, and corporate laboratories based in the city.