On February 7, President Yoshikawa, Vice-President N. Kobayashi, Vice-President Yamazaki and other AIST executives visited the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) where, together with President Brechignac and other executives of CNRS, the above seminar aimed at contributing to best laboratory management practices was held.

CNRS, with a total of 26,000 researchers and technologists, is France's largest public industrial technology research organization, possessing a large number of collaborative research laboratories with universities and stressing industry - academia - government collaboration and the development of innovation clusters. Since its entry into a comprehensive agreement with CNRS, AIST has promoted collaborative research such as the Joint Robotics Laboratory, but in addition, since both organizations have common issues regarding innovation and industrial technology management, this seminar came about because of the great benefit to be derived from an exchange of opinions and mutual instruction concerning laboratory management.

The current situation of respective laboratories with regard to innovation, evaluation and venture strategy etc. was reported and opinions exchanged. It is planned that a similar seminar addressing other topics will be held at a future opportunity.

Also the signing of the "environmental catalysis for sustaining clean air and water (ECSAW)" cooperative research agreement was held. This agreement aims at innovations in catalysis technology which represents one of the core technologies in the field of environment/energy, with AIST and CNRS multiple research units cooperating over a period of 4 years. With this signing, it is expected that a stimulus will be provided to research cooperation in environmental research, including the development of European and Asian markets.

From March 6 to 7, a comprehensive research agreement was concluded in Newcastle, Australia between the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) and AIST, and in conjunction with this a research workshop was held. CSIRO is Australia's largest government general research organization, with 6600 employees and pursuing research in a wide range of areas such as environment, energy, resources, manufacturing, minerals and agricultural economics etc.

Research unit base collaboration with AIST has continued from its period as Industrial Research Institute, particularly in areas such as coal liquefaction, materials, resources and measurement standards etc. Recently, CSIRO Chief Executive Dr. Garrett, who was an AIST 2nd-term Advisory Board Meeting member, has been involved in detailed exchanges of opinion regarding research structure and management. Although Australia is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, it held the AP6 (Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, America, India) Environment Ministerial Conference and is positively pursuing post-Kyoto Protocol measures against global warming. Australia, which has suffered the largest drought in history, is as this year's chair nation of APEC, positively pursuing "diplomacy for anti-global warming measures" such as the development of clean coal technology and carbon dioxide reduction technology etc.

The research workshop was attended by 14 people from AIST including Senior Vice-President Kodama, Research Coordinator Tsukuda and others and there was an exchange of opinions on a diverse range of fields centered on environment, energy and nano-related such as clean coal, distributed energy production, solar power, geological remote sensing, methane hydrate, underground carbon dioxide storage and nanotechnology etc. After the workshop had finished, researchers separated according to research theme and visited research organizations in Newcastle, Brisbane, Clayton or Sydney etc, and there were further specialized exchanges of opinion in the respective research fields. It is planned that the two organizations will aim to strategically strengthen their collaboration, including information exchange, research personnel exchange and acquisition of outside funding, according to action plans in the respective research fields.

From February 13 to 16, the International Engineering & Technology Fair India (IETF 2007) was held in New Delhi. Japan, as a partner country (for the 2nd time, the 1st being in 1997), assisted in holding the fair, with the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) acting as representative and producing an exhibition including information on a large number of private enterprises. There were around 10,000 visitors to the Japanese pavilion on the first day and 3,000 to 4,000 daily on the remaining days.

AIST presented posters regarding 12 items, describing summaries of laboratories, technology transfer and main research results (10 items). Various people from junior high school students to the elderly, both men and women visited and showed interest in the AIST booth. Amongst the visitors, there were people who made enquiries about postdoctoral positions, use of patents etc.

There were so many visitors that on the final day, the last of the posters prepared by AIST were all taken.

On March 9, the Vietnamese Science and Technology Minister Hoang Van Phong, together with Ministry of Science and Technology related personnel and Vietnamese Embassy related personnel resident in Tokyo etc., visited the Tsukuba Center.

In August of last year with the signing between the two governments of the Japan - Vietnam Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement, the 1st Japan - Vietnam Joint Committee on Science and Technology was held on March 7 in Tokyo, with around 20 people attending from Vietnam. This meeting was the first regarding science and technology to be held between the two governments and Minister Hoang Van Phong and Sanae Takaichi, minister responsible for science and technology, attended. There was also a report from AIST of the details of collaboration with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

AIST signed a comprehensive agreement with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in December 2004, with the 1st workshop being held in Hanoi, the 2nd being held in October 2005 and the 3rd being held in November 2006, both at the Tsukuba Center. Various fields were promoted as areas for a strengthening of collaboration: environmental measures such as waste water processing, biomass related technology, marine/geological related research, GEO Grid and multi-language processing and open source software. The visit of the Vietnamese Science and Technology Minister to AIST, as a representative Japanese research organization, was arranged at the minister's request.

On the day of the visit, welcoming greetings were given by Senior Vice-President Kodama, an outline explanation of AIST was given by Vice-President Yamazaki, an introduction to the details of the collaboration between AIST and the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology was given by Research Coordinator Yamabe and an introduction to waste water processing technology, which is a particularly strong field of collaborative research with the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, was given by Research Institute for Environmental Management Technology Vice-Director Tao. Then, a lively question and answer session was held regarding the details of establishment as an independent administrative institution, history and differences from universities and other research institutions. Following this, there was an inspection of the various facilities and of the research that they are pursuing: the Grid Technology Research Center, Research Center for Photovoltaics and the Nanotechnology Research Institute.

At the Grid Technology Research Center, in particular, the GEO Grid was introduced as an area of cooperative research aiming at development in the ASEAN area. Also, regarding solar cells, Minister Phong showed strong interest in the promotion of cooperative research with AIST and showed interest in the utilization and value of nanotech processing facilities. At the end of the tour, Minister Phong stated that because AIST was pursuing extremely advanced research, he hoped that a large number of researchers could be accepted from Vietnam. With this visit to AIST, it is expected that collaboration between the two countries will be given a further boost.

On April 16, a management meeting and research assessment committee meeting of the Joint Japanese - French Robotics Laboratory (JRL), which is jointly run by the AIST Intelligent Systems Research Institute and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS: comprehensive MOU agreement) Department of Information and Engineering Sciences and Technologies, was held at the CNRS Laboratory of Analysis and Architecture of Systems (LAAS) in Toulouse, which houses the French research site (JRL - France). There was a demonstration using the humanoid robot HRP-2, introduced into the Toulouse laboratory last year from Japan, which received high praise from the members of the Research Assessment Committee, which comprises not only Japanese and French members, but also researchers from Germany and America. It is expected that with the further progress of JRL activities, the Intelligent Systems Research Institute's research collaboration will be further strengthened, of course with France but also with other EU robotics research organizations.

On April 5, European Commission Member Viviane Reding (EC Commissioner responsible for information and communications) and her staff visited AIST's Tsukuba Center. At the start, following welcoming greetings from Senior Vice-President Katsura, there was an outline explanation of AIST from Vice-President Yamazaki, and after an explanation of AIST's ICT related research activities by Research Coordinator Ohmaki, an explanation of Framework Program 7 (FP7), starting from this financial year, was given by the EC party. Following this, Commissioner Reding, Vice-President Yoshiumi and other AIST and EU members engaged in a lively exchange of opinions regarding research collaboration between Europe and AIST, centering on FP7.

After this, the group moved to the Tsukuba Open Space Laboratory (OSL) and Intelligent Systems Research Institute Director Hirai explained AIST's robotics research, following which the group saw the seal-shaped robot "Paro" and the Joint Japanese - French Robotics Laboratory (JRL) humanoid robot, with Commissioner Reding enthusiastically exchanging opinions with researchers particularly regarding collaboration in the field of robotics.

In 1984, the European Commission started the first Framework Plan (FP) and from 2002, the 5 year plan FP6 was put into operation, with international joint research within the EU area (also including international cooperative research support from outside the EU) being pursued. 2007 sees the start of FP7, which apart from the stressing of infrastructure, will further strengthen cooperative research and networking and will run for 7 years with a planned total budget of 55 billion euros, with expectations of the strengthening of an open research network outside Europe also being expressed.

At the Intelligent Systems Research Institute, Joint Japanese - French Robotics Laboratory (JRL) formed with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Department of Communication and Information Science and Technology, as an international laboratory, has participated in FP6 and with regard to future developments, at the CNRS/AIST Board Director Meeting held in Toulouse, France on April 16, further increases in the promotion of collaborative research, including FP7, were discussed. It is expected that with Commissioner Reding's visit, there will be a step up in the strength of research collaboration between the EU and AIST and, of course, the Intelligent Systems Research Institute.

On April 23, the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment Vice-Minister Truong Von Doan together with personal connected to the ministry's Small & Medium Sized Business Agency visited AIST's Tsukuba Center.

Vice-Minister Doan is the person with responsibility on the Vietnamese side for the Small and Medium Sized Business Support Center which is a joint project between JICA and Vietnam. This JICA project which aims to train leaders to develop small and medium sized businesses, started in the 2006 financial year and will run for a total period of 2 years.

After welcoming greetings from Senior Vice-President Katsura, an outline explanation of AIST and an introduction to the details of the collaboration between AIST and the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology were given by Vice-President Yamazaki, and an introduction to AIST's industry - academia - government collaboration system was given by Collaboration Promotion Department Director Hama.

Vice-Minister Doan expressed his gratitude for the strengthening of collaboration between AIST and Vietnam and for cooperation given to the Vietnamese Small and Medium Sized Business Support Center and a lively question and answer session was held regarding reversion of patents and small/medium business support.

For five days from April 16 to 20, the world industrial trade fair "Hanover Messe 2007," which gathers together various industrial fields, was held in the Hanover International Trade Fair Hall in Germany, with AIST presenting its 5th exhibition. 6400 companies from 62 countries exhibited at the event, with visitor numbers amounting to 230,000 (30% of which were from outside Germany), making Hanover Messe what can be called a true gateway to world markets.