Research Service Office
 
KEK Research Service Office evolved from former KEK nternational Collaboration Office (KICOFF).

KICOFF was established in 1997 to promote internationalizing KEK under the Director General Sugawara and headed by Tokio OHSKA. High energy physics laboratories are international by nature. However, the Japanese government does not recognize international anything, unless it is related to Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (There are some exceptions such as Japanese school for Japanese children living outside of Japan.) This concept stems from the geographical and historical condition Japan has been in, namely isolated from outside by ocean. This lead us into a conflict between carrying out our research activities as an international facility and the governmental view of what is to be done here. The KICOFF started bilingualize lots of things on site, including building names, emergency procedure, various announcements. We offer e-mail news in English, free weekly English class, Japanese Language Class for visitors, to name a few. However, mentality of the majority (but not all) of non-researchers in KEK is reflecting the governmental view and we soon hit a brick wall in many places. We could not produce as much improvement as we hoped for. When we realized that normal approach to this perennial problem would not work, we started to look at this from totally different direction. The first thing we have to achieve is to let the KEK employees to recognize that KEK is in fact an international facility. So we pleaded cafeteria and restaurant chefs to serve foreign dishes on regular bases, so that people eating lunch there would gradually get the hint that KEK might be an international place. This “International Dinner” project was nationally broadcast by NHK television as a unique attempt. Tokio organized a group called “Bread Tasters of Tsukuba” and have been doing bread-tasting party. This made Tsukuba bakeries to realize that they should consider the taste preference of non-Japanese as well. As a spin off of this, decent French baguettes are now available from KEK grocery store. KEK recognized the importance of English speaking capability of all employees and offered TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) test last February for employees. This was a big step forward. (May be that the International Dinner Project was effective.) Now this office is getting into how to improve KEK for visiting Japanese researchers as well and the office name was changed to Research Service Office.

Internationalizing inside of KEK site is surely insufficient for non-Japanese families to live in Tsukuba so that Tokio started a group called Tsukuba International Network (TIN) for which many major national labs in Tsukuba have been participating. The first project of the TIN group was to persuade a bus company to display route numbers in addition to destination display written only in Japanese. This was realized some 5 years ago and now people who cannot read Japanese could take a bus with some confidence. We have been appealing to hospitals, police, etc. for their doing their shares in taking care of non-Japanese in town. Tsukuba City office now provides important city announcements in other languages. Tokio has been appointed by the Mayor as a director of Tsukuba City International Affairs Committee. Expecting that we will get into more international collaborations soon (J-PARC, ILC), members of this office, Tokio OHSKA and Hiroko Shibasaki (picture left) will be kept quite busy. (T.K.O.)