A year and half has elapsed since the start of RIKEN BSI in October 1997. The number of BSI staff, which was less than 100 at the start, has now increased to nearly 300. As may be seen with the completion of the first phase of the Central Research Building in April 1999, the research system has been progressing steadily and the number of joint research programs with universities, research institutions and corporations already numbers 20. As such a smooth development is the fruit of strong government support and cooperation from many fields such as academic circles we would like to express deep gratitude to them all. Also, the fact that we were able to deal with a comprehensive science like brain science in such a highly mobile manner and short time is thanks to the organizational strength historically and cultivated flexibility of RIKEN, which covers all disciplines of science and is the sole research institution classified as a special government corporation in Japan.
It was just three years ago that the BSI project was first hammered out. Backed by the enthusiastic activities of the "Century of the Brain" and aiming at the healthy promotion of brain science in Japan, the national government started to adopt drastical measures for positively promoting this policy. This seemed to be based on the idea that it would provide leverage for Japanese biomedical science, which had been much delayed compared to that of the United States and Europe in terms of both policy and practice. Regretfully, although there were a large number of internationally recognized scientists working in Japanese biomedical science, they mostly functioned individually. It was generally recognized that there was no established organization for contributing much to the progress of international science or a system for producing large numbers of young talented researchers. With this fact in mind, the BSI made a highly motivated challenge aiming at becoming a really international COE from its beginning. In short, we decided to break from precedent, get rid of parallelism, tackle anything required for achieving cutting-edge research provided that it was valid, and create a large biomedical science institute which is deserving of its appellation, which is run for research, can deal with real ﾒscienceﾓ and in addition occupies an important position in society.
Soon after the formulation of the BSI vision, which consisted of creating a completely new kind of scientific institute in Japan, overseas surveys were made by visiting various overseas research institutions in order to learn from them techniques of management, organization and how to create desirable research environments. The first survey was held during the holidays from the end of April to the beginning of May 1996. Under a difficult schedule of visiting two, three or even more institutions each day without any days being reserved for transit, the number of institutions visited up to the present is about 50, including brain science institutions such as the NIH institutes, MRC (UK), Max-Planck Institutes, UCSF, Salk Institute, Rockefeller University, as well as the EMBL, CALTECH, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, HHMI and Wellcome Trust headquarters. The survey group was welcomed everywhere by top officials, who showed their laboratories with pleasure, impressing the survey group members with the excellence of their research and the world of science which is free from the constraints of conscious boundaries.
The total number of BSI staff including researchers and engineers will reach 500 within three or four years, with nearly 60 laboratory heads (who typically are young professors of science). On the other hand, when an organization becomes large, the numbers of rules and meetings tend to increase to an almost unnecessary level, due to problems such as respect for equality, sharing of information and building of consensus. However, with freedom and flexibility as the first concern, the BSI established the basic rules needed to render mutual understanding between staff in as simple as possible manner and by preference promoted interaction in actual research activities inside as well as outside the BSI. This policy is intended to allow researchers to concentrate on the important and challenging tasks facing the international science community while leaving the administrative matters as far as possible to those responsible for them.
The research system in Japan tends to be slow in reacting dynamically to emerging science and this is partly because of the existence of barriers that block the free activities of younger researchers and their entry into new fields. The BSI plans to deal positively with these problems by establishing the new position of senior researcher, in which the scientist chosen will be encouraged to conduct truly independent research, though this attempt will still be limited to brain science field.
I also had an opportunity to visit Europe and the United States during the Golden Week, from the end of April this year. Everywhere I received expressions of optimism and encouragement for Japanese Science and the BSI from many people. As a top scientist in the world said then, We would like to keep the firm perspectives over the coming decades, and the BSI will participate with high ambition in the enterprise of pioneering a new historical chapter for the brain sciences.
