Upon the establishment of AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology), an independent administrative institution, I would like to say a few words by way of greeting.

The industrial technology of our country has contributed, on a large scale, to achievement of postwar advanced economic growth. However, one factor contributing to the continuing slowdown in the economy of our country after the 1990s, and which has remained at a low level for a long period of time, is the competitive power fall due to stagnation of industrial technical power. It will be an important subject for our country to improve its industrial technical power and to achieve competitive power in an increasingly globalized international society.

Furthermore, in the beginning of the 21^st century, more and more is being expected of organizations and researchers engaged in science and technology. Such expectations involve, from an international point of view, solving problems common to man such as depletion of resources / energy and global environmental issues, and, from a domestic point of view, creating new industries regardless of mature existing industries.

When AIST was established, and in order to precisely meet the expectations of our country and its people, the organization was designed so that effective and efficient research and development would be performed with mobility, openness, creativity, fusion, reliability and continuity in mind.

With the purpose of achieving policy objectives, AIST's target is firmly aligned with fundamental / pioneering research and political needs, performing research and development systematically and synthetically, which leads to the improvement of science and technology in our country.

With such independent administrative institutionalization, there are no longer numerous restrictions which used to be imposed on conventional national research organizations, and flexible organization operation becomes possible at the discretion of the head of the organization. From now on, human resources and research funds will be invested in important research fields preponderantly and flexibly.

Simultaneously, being able to perform self-sustaining operations means that it will become a fundamental duty of research institutes and researchers to explain research details and results to society. For this reason, strict self-valuation will be performed and the results will be reflected in operations. Moreover, not only research results shall be dispatched and distributed but our research and development activities will also be promoted to reflect the social voice.

In addition, interactions with external research organizations will be actively promoted, and AIST will work together, especially with the industrial sector, from the research implementation stage through to the practical use of research results. For this reason, a research environment shall be created, for instance, by introducing a system to take in researchers from nongovernmental companies and making precise arrangements with regards to intellectual property rights. Such an environment will help to foster researchers full of can-do spirit, and who could establish venture companies based on their research results.

Lastly, excellent research leaders from in and outside the country will be invited, and AIST will perform higher-level activities as an internationally open institute. AIST also aims to mobilize human resources throughout society and to make researches more efficient, by opening a route that allows interaction between research institutes, companies and universities, and to build a new research-and-development system framework for our country.

It would be our great pleasure, as a 'creative researcher organization to lead and propose science and technology for society' if we could contribute to bolstering competitiveness in the 'industries' which hold the future of this country.

AIST Tsukuba