Two members of the senior management team of Japan's RIKEN laboratory visited TRIUMF on Thursday, October 29, 2009, to share operating models and discuss opportunities for partnership. Dr. Yoshiharu Doi (Executive Director) and Mr. Yasuaki Yutani (Director of Global Relations) spent three hours at TRIUMF in Vancouver after extensive meetings in Ottawa with senior government officials.
RIKEN is one of Japan's largest research organizations with nearly 3,000 employees and an annual operating budget of about $1 billion. RIKEN is distinguished around the world for not only its scientific productivity but also its managament; at Science Day in Ottawa in May 2009, chair of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Council Howard Alper called RIKEN "The best managed laboratory in the world." The RIKEN portfolio includes Advanced Science Institutes (i.e., pioneering new fields of research such as chemical biology and extreme photonics), Strategic Research Centres (e.g., molecular-imaging science centres), and Research Infrastructure Centres (e.g., SPring-8 and RIBF). The bulk of the research staff are supported on fixed-term contracts for five years, a mechanism that fosters creativity, innovation, and the mobility of highly trained personnel with industry, academia, and other countries. RIKEN also manages overseas laboratories at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England, MIT and Brookhaven in the U.S., and emergent laboratories in Singapore and China.
During their visit to TRIUMF, the RIKEN delegation met with TRIUMF director Nigel Lockyer and leaders of the Science, Accelerator, and Nuclear Medicine divisions. They took a short tour of TRIUMF's facilities and marvelled at the strength and diversity of the scientific program.
The upcoming joint TRIUMF/RIKEN workshop in December 2009 on theoretical nuclear physics was discussed as one of the areas for growing collaboration. TRIUMF has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with RIKEN's Nishina Centre for Accelerator Science in July 2009 at a special ceremony in Tokyo at the Canadian Embassy. Areas for fruitful partnership include next-generation accelerators, high-powered target development, and remote handling. In life sciences, RIKEN and TRIUMF are both involved in some of each nation's forefront brain science as well as the burgeoning field of molecular imaging.
TRIUMF thanks Dr. Doi and Mr. Yutani for their gracious visit and looks forward to building new connections between Canada and Japan in strategic areas where TRIUMF and RIKEN can work together.
Dr. Doi and Mr. Yutani learn about TRIUMF from Dr. Jean-Michel Poutissou.
-- By T.I. Meyer, TRIUMF's Head of Strategic Planning and Communications