Japan names institutes in search for global excellence

—From Nature News in Brief—Nature 449, 271 (20 September 2007)

Japan has selected its five World Premier International Research Centers (WPIs), a group of institutes that will share US$70 million per year for up to ten years (see Nature 447, 362–363; 2007).

A central goal of the WPI initiative is to create world-leading research organizations by attracting foreign scientists and collaborating with foreign institutions. For instance, the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, named as a WPI, aims to make materials for sustainable development through a new technology called nanoarchitectonics. It already has collaborators lined up in the United States, South Korea, China and the Czech Republic.

But there were few surprises among the chosen five, or in the fact that Japan’s most prestigious national universities — Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Tohoku — each has one designated WPI.