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Eisuke Masada, Chairman of the Committee
The ETL External Review Committee for Fiscal 1997 was held on March 9 and 10, 1998. Some of Committee members did the review work on March 6. Before these meetings, a large volume of materials for the review had been sent to every Committee member, who had submitted pre-evaluation comments in accordance with AIST format to the Secretariat. A summary report of the pre-evaluation had also been distributed to the members.
The evaluation work consisted of ETL's presentation on the management, operation, organization, scheme, major research areas and their descriptions; questions and answers; laboratory tours; discussion on the overall evaluation among Committee members; reporting of evaluation summary and comments of individual members to the ETL managers and directors; and ETL's statement on these results. The following report concerns a brief summary of discussion at the Committee meeting.
The activities of ETL may be assessed up to the mark for playing a leading role in the nation's R&D programs despite various constraints imposed to national institutes, as a COE under AIST. However, the Review Committee considers that there are a number of points to be improved in the operation and research works of ETL with respect to reflection of industrial and social needs, and organic and mutually beneficial collaboration with industries.
These points are closely related to the mission of national research institutes, and in particular, that of ETL among them. Along with the globalization of industries and the collapse of bubble economy, the research environment in Japan has largely changed, and an extensive restructuring of national institutes has been considered. Under these circumstances, it will be necessary to establish a strategic long-term vision on the management, operation and research planning, and let all the staff members share it. While I heard that drafting such a vision has already been started in ETL, it is more desirable to build up the vision in the presence of outside members with the industrial and social needs taken into consideration.
The External Evaluation Committee, therefore, would like to advise ETL to install a committee for building up a long-term vision by extending the existing efforts within, reflecting the industrial and social needs, and including outside members in discussion to ensure transparency. The objective of this committee will be to submit a report as soon as possible in view of urgent nature of the problem.
The "Vision Committee" will be requested to take the following items into consideration:
It would be desired that the discussion involves not only the management but also representatives of every class of ETL so as to share the vision.
The overall view of the Committee is included in the General Remarks.
(1) Research themes may be regarded to have been selected appropriately in view of domestic and overseas trends in science and technology, and in view of novelty and originality, though seemingly too wide-spread in consideration of ETL's resource.
(2) While some of selected themes have taken industrial and social needs into account, it seems to be desirable that researchers in general have more interest in these needs and analyze them.
(3) The selected themes are deemed to be at a proper level in light of ETL's research potential and similar projects in other research institutes.
(4) It was difficult to understand the scheme and process of selecting research themes from the delivered Databook alone. The presentation at the Meeting resolved this difficulty, and it was understood that the system worked well in view of the principle of competitiveness and transparency.
(1) The organization and personnel allocation of ETL seem to be well-balanced for carrying out R&D works effectively and efficiently. The Committee would like to expect a good success under the domain research and LAB system.
(2) The flexibility of research organization to cope with newly emerging areas and interdisciplinary fields seems to have been extensively improved by the LAB system.
(3) The introduction of the LAB system has appropriately contributed to slimming the research organization by eliminating a layer of hierarchy. How to make the operation more efficiently would be a task in future.
(1) Means for recruiting competent research personnel and training junior scientists seem to be appropriate in the present situation.
(2) Qualified scientists are treated adequately.
(3) In evaluating researchers' achievements, an excessive emphasis is placed on the number of published papers. It seems necessary to adopt a more balanced evaluation index taking broad activities into consideration.
(1) As for the tripartite personnel exchange among industrial, governmental and academic sectors, that between universities and national laboratories seems to be one-sided, and the private sector feels a high barrier in collaborating with the government organization. Besides, some schemes are difficult to utilize. Therefore, there are many points to be improved in promoting the inter-sectorial cooperation and consolidating R&D works through it.
(2) The international collaboration seems to be as good as other national research institutes but less extensive in comparison to universities and corporate research institutes. It seems to be necessary to pay more efforts to improve the situation by overcoming legal constraints. More efforts are also required for augmenting the contribution to the international science communities.
(1) So far as the data in the delivered documents show, the number and quality of published papers and the number and quality of oral presentations at scientific conferences are at an adequate level as an objective indicator for evaluating R&D works. However, for more appropriate assessment, statistical data are to be processed more elaborately.
(2) The number of patents and the degree of implementation constitute another important factor of transmission of research results, and it is desired to evaluate patent achievements at the comparable level to papers.
(3) ETL should pay more efforts for commendation and awarding as a part of its activity.
(4) In view of research results corresponding to industrial and social needs, it may be pointed out that presenting seeds only is insufficient, and an attitude of strengthening ties with the industrial sector and handling the commercialization efforts may be required.
(5) For disseminating research results, it will be necessary to establish a scheme of positive technology transfer such as manufacturing or building environment for development . More publicity efforts will be required for technical aspects in addition to academic ones.
(1) The initiative of Director-General and other management staff may be regarded to be appropriate in regard to the overall operation of ETL.
(2) In light of the mission of national research institute, there are some problems in reflecting the industrial and social needs. As described in General Remarks, the mission itself is to be re-examined.
Throughout the discussion in the Meeting, it has been pointed out that the national accounting system is too complicated, imposing a lot of constraints to the national institutes and impeding R&D activities. The Committee would like to propose a radical reform of the accounting system.
(This report was translated from Japanese on the Secretariat's responsibility.)