KEK News Vol.7 No.1(New years resolution)

     Happy New Year to everyone. I received the written appointment to tell me that "I shall be the Director General of KEK". I will put my serious effort to further improve the KEK for which I need your working together with me.

      As you already know that there are 14 Inter- University Research Institutions which are to be reorganized into 4 Agencies, excluding National Institute of Multimedia Education. They are: National Institutes for the Humanities, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Research Organization of Information and Systems and High Energy Accelerator Research Organization. National Institutes for the Humanities is headed by the President Ishii of Kanda Foreign Language University combining National Institute of Japanese Literature, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Research Institute of Humanity and Nature, National Museum of Ethnology, National Museum of Japanese History. National Institutes of Natural Science is headed by the present Director Shimura of JSPS Stockholm Office combining National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, National Institute for Fusion Science, Institute for Molecular Science, National Institute for Basic Biology and National Institute for Physiological Sciences. Research Organization of Information and Systems is headed by the Director General Hotta of Institute of Genetics combining National Institute of Informatics, National Institute of Genetics, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics and National Institute of Polar Research.

      KEK as the new agency will consists of the Institute of Particle and Nuclear Study and the Institute of Materials Structure Science along with Accelerator Facility and Research Support Facilities. Thanks to the great efforts done by the former KEK management, KEK structure will stay unmodified after becoming an independent agency. I do appreciate this very much.

      After April, other three organizations will start as brand new organizations and would face a lot of difficulties. These three appears to me to have different character when compared with KEK. KEK has a clearly defined back bone - high energy accelerators - that would enable unified management. Others consists of loosely coupled organizations, so call Okazaki style. KEK appears to be more on the line of the law for national universities as independent agencies. All of us are expected to demonstrate maximum efficiency for research results. Which style of organization suites this better will become clear in a few years.

      KEK has been producing a lot of world class research results. We are one of a few research organizations in the world that makes USA researchers feel challenged. I am convinced that we will continue producing competitive research results after we become an agency, without doing something special, but keep doing the same continuous effort.

      When directing KEK researches, I shall be a good listener open to any researcher in the fields. Especially on future projects of KEK, I hope to hear a lot of constructive discussions among relevant community members. The site decision for ITER project in February could make a big impact on KEK future projects and need to keep an eye on it. For any future big project, it would have to be either multi-purpose or global to be persuasive under the very tight government budget.

      I should point out that there would be some differences after we will become an independent agency. We will be evaluated how well we will perform with respect to the promised midterm goal within the next 6 years. We should be fully aware of this in doing our research activities.

      In particular, I should ask the people in charge of J-PARK project if they could complete the facility and start the research activity on time and if accepted experiments can start taking data right away.

      Next thing is the efficient use of budget and human resources. Members of KEK are responsible to support inter-university researches that use KEK facility. Hence KEK will invest in these tasks related to the inter-university researches as listed in the interim goals. KEK researchers also have responsibility to make better use of the facility and to improve the facility and equipment. You should consciously apply for budget-through-competition for such research and development projects. Such efforts will be appreciated.

      The responsibilities of universities are education and researches. KEK is a research facility but its contribution to education should be fully recognized.

      Since we are participating in the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, we should make full use of the situation in bringing up excellent young researchers. This is not only vital for us but will be well recognized socially.

      At present, we can not justify putting much time and/or budget for projects in an infant stage or R&D for research equipment using new ideas (translator's comment: because they are not well recognized, and unclear of its potential/value). If we get students' help to work on them, we might be able to get these going.

      Additional responsibility of Universities after they will become an independent agency, "explicit/direct contribution" have been talked about. Obviously education and researches are very important contribution to the country. However, they should put more efforts for explaining about their research outcomes to general public as well as to the world. Through an easy-tounderstand explanation on newspapers and other mass media, we successfully presented our achievements by B-Factory accelerator and experiment, which in turn get well appreciated by Japanese people for its providing a little bit of encouragement and hope in science and technology of this country. We should put more effort on public relations. I would ask especially IMSS people to be more conscious about the public relation to let people be aware of their activities. I would like to promote activities such as getting young students involved in hands-on experience in physics as well as into adult education. I urge you to work on these.

      One of the direct contributions we do is to initiate the development of new technology through our R&D projects and then feed them back to industries.

      Medical application of FFAG accelerator, C-band technology for synchrotron radiation source and ultra-compact electron accelerators comes up to my mind first. Surely, there must be many such applications of our technological findings that would be quite valuable for industries. However, I would like you to be aware that our top priority should be on research and not on industrial applications. There are many outside experts for it.

      The law to establish an organization to handle intellectual property of inter-university research organizations was proposed by 13 Inter-University Research Organizations and was approved last year. We will be conforming with the law starting next fiscal year. Present nation wide problem is to find experts on the intellectual properties for such organization. This relates to collaborations with industries. If a collaboration of that style would improve our research, we should push for it provided that we must be careful when we publicize the results. These would be the things we should put our effort into. I should repeat that our activity should aim for a better research and not for an intellectual property.

      I think KEK is doing well. But it is more difficult to stay on top than to reach the top. I encourage you to keep working hard. Thank you for listening.