Japan's World Premier International Research Centers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () sfc wide ad jp>
Date: September 20, 2007 10:03:47 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Japan's World Premier International Research Centers

Dave, for IP if you wish...

The Japanese government just announced winners of its competition to
establish several new World Premier International Research Centers:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7160/full/449271a.html
http://web.jsps.go.jp/english/e-toplevel/data/03_results/ 
selected_projects.pdf
http://www.jsps.go.jp/j-toplevel/data/01_koubo/01_mess_e.pdf

The pot they are sharing is big: US$70M or so per year for ten years.
I'm fuzzy on whether that money can be used for new buildings or just
salaries and experimental equipment.  In this country, most Ph.D.
students are unfunded, and academic salaries are somewhat lower than the
in U.S.  I'm fuzzy on how burdening and apportionment of monies goes,
but overall I have the impression that a buck buys more research time
here than in the U.S., so $7M a year would go a long way, provided you
avoid really big ticket items.

As the Nature article notes, there are "few surprises" as U. Tokyo
(Todai), Kyoto U. (Kyodai), Osaka U. (Handai), and Tohoku U. each picked
one up.  I haven't seen a summary of the competition, but one is listed
as having a "serial number" of 28, so you might speculate that they
received at least 28 submissions.

One is for nanomaterials, one for "Atom, Molecule, Materials", and a
third for "Integrated Cell-Material Science", so there's an interesting
focus there.  (For my money, nanomaterials, mesoscopic quantum systems,
metamaterials, self-assembling systems, etc. is a fascinating area, ripe
for some important breakthroughs in the coming decade, so it seems
reasonable to me.)  The remaining two are immunology and "Physics and
Mathematics of the Universe".

Three of the five list extensive international partners, including
Caltech, Harvard, and Max Planck.

                --Rod




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