Distinguishing Characteristics

The core of the circulatory research system of RIKEN

The ASI is maintained dynamically by five research organs designed to transform optimally to support research at all different stages. Laboratories and Research Units are discovering new research seeds, Basic Science Interdisciplinary Research Projects are cultivating new research seeds, Departments are binding research seeds to blossom as new research cores, Corporate & International Relations Division is supporting them, and Corporate & International Relations Division is promoting more varied and stronger collaborative research efforts with other research organs both within and without RIKEN. The ASI is developing more strategic research centers and research infrastructure centers that may later grow into new research cores of global scientific endeavor. When new research seeds are found out in these centers, the ASI lets the seed send out buds and cultivate them. This flow is the circulatory research system of RIKEN, and the ASI is the core of the system.

The circulatory research system of RIKEN

Discovering new research seeds

Throughout its history RIKEN has been lauded as "a paradise for scientists," a place where individual creativity is actively encouraged, leading to a wide range of important achievements. ASI has inherited this tradition and as such is viewed as the core of RIKEN. In the ASI's Chief Scientist laboratories, scientists continue to work in diverse areas of basic research to produce new seeds of research, applying their creative ideas without being constrained by conventional boundaries of discipline.

Cultivating new research seeds

New seeds with the potential to grow into new fields of research are constantly being created. A very important task is deciding which seeds to cultivate and deciding which of them have the potential to develop into strategic fields of research of national as well as scientific and technological importance. ASI has the systems in place for determining in a bottom-up fashion which laboratory developments should be cultivated into new collaborative projects in basic science interdisciplinary research projects. It is the researchers themselves who decide which research seeds should be developed into full-fledged research departments. And because they are at the forefront of science, their appraisal is rigorous and the rate of success is high.

Binding research seeds to blossom as new research cores

The ASI's research groups and teams have novel names with special terms such as cross-correlated materials and extreme photonics. These names represent new research domains that have been carefully cultivated from the seeds of basic research. For example, RIKEN Brain Science Institute is the result of just such a project in leading-edge research that was spun off from what was formerly known as the Frontier Research System to become an independent center. Likewise, a number of former Chief Scientist laboratories have evolved over time into the RIKEN Plant Science Center, the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science and numerous other strategic research centers and research infrastructure centers. ASI has been charged with continuing this trend by developing more strategic research centers and research infrastructure centers that may later grow into new research cores of global scientific endeavor.

Transcending disciplinary, organizational and national boundaries

Integrated collaborative endeavors among different fields of research are indispensable in nurturing the tiny seeds of individual research so that they will blossom into new research domains. There are no national borders in science. ASI takes full advantage of RIKEN's resources as a comprehensive research institution not only to develop strategic research centers and research infrastructure centers within RIKEN, but also to promote collaborations with both domestic and international centers of research, as well as universities and corporations, to carry out large-scale research reaching across diverse fields.

The source of RIKEN’s vitality

RIKEN conducts research in nearly every field of the natural sciences, and it is ASI that makes possible such great variation on such a broad scale. ASI is truly the source of RIKEN's vitality. ASI is also central to RIKEN's contributions to the crafting of national science and technology policy. Finally, as RIKEN's core institute, ASI works vigorously to encourage the free global exchange of researchers and thereby secure RIKEN's place in the international scientific community.

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