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Riken

Coordinates:35°46′49″N139°36′45″E/ 35.78028°N 139.61250°E/35.78028; 139.61250
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Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken)
Lý hoá học viện nghiên cứu ( lý nghiên )
Formation1917;107 years ago(1917)
TypeDesignated National Research and Development Institute
HeadquartersWakō,Saitama Prefecture,Japan
Location
  • 7 campuses
Coordinates35°46′49″N139°36′45″E/ 35.78028°N 139.61250°E/35.78028; 139.61250
AffiliationsAsian Research Network
Websitewww.riken.jpEdit this at Wikidata

Riken(Japanese:Lý nghiên,English:/ˈrɪkɛn/;[1]stylized inall capsasRIKEN)is a national scientificresearch institutein Japan. Founded in 1917, it now has about 3,000 scientists on seven campuses across Japan, including the main site atWakō,Saitama Prefecture,on the outskirts ofTokyo.Riken is aDesignated National Research and Development Institute,[2]and was formerly anIndependent Administrative Institution.

Riken conducts research in various fields of science, includingphysics,chemistry,biology,genomics,medical science,engineering,high-performance computingandcomputational science,and ranging frombasic researchtopractical applicationswith 485 partners worldwide.[3]It is almost entirely funded by theJapanese government,with an annual budget of ¥100 billion (US$750 million) in FY2023.[4]

Name

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"Riken" is anacronymof the formal nameRikagaku Kenkyūsho(Lý hoá học viện nghiên cứu),and its full name in Japanese isKokuritsu Kenkyū Kaihatsu Hōjin Rikagaku Kenkyūsho(Quốc lập nghiên cứu khai phát pháp nhân lý hoá học viện nghiên cứu)and in English is theInstitute of Physical and Chemical Research.

History

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Riken in theTaishō period
A 1938 ad for Riken Vitamin A

In 1913, the well-known scientistJokichi Takaminefirst proposed the establishment of a national science research institute in Japan. This task was taken on by ViscountShibusawa Eiichi,a prominent businessman, and following a resolution by theDietin 1915, Riken came into existence in March 1917. In its first incarnation, Riken was a private foundation (zaidan), funded by a combination of industry, the government, and theImperial Household.It was located in the Komagome district ofTokyo,and its first director was the mathematician BaronDairoku Kikuchi.[citation needed]

In 1927, ViscountMasatoshi Ōkōchi,the third director, established the RikenConcern(azaibatsu). This was a group of spin-off companies that used Riken's scientific achievements for commercial ends and returned the profits to Riken. At its peak in 1939 the zaibatsu comprised about 121 factories and 63 companies, including Riken Kankōshi, which is nowRicoh.[citation needed]

DuringWorld War II,theJapanese army's atomic bomb programwas conducted at Riken. In April 1945 the US bombed Riken's laboratories in Komagome, and in November, after the end of the war, Allied soldiers destroyed its twocyclotrons.[citation needed]

After the war, the Allies dissolved Riken as a private foundation, and it was brought back to life as a company called Kagaku Kenkyūsho(Khoa học viện nghiên cứu),or Kaken(Nghiên cứu khoa học).In 1958 the Diet passed the Riken Law, whereby the institute returned to its original name and entered its third incarnation, as a public corporation(Đặc thù pháp nhân,tokushu hōjin),funded by the government. In 1963 it relocated to a large site in modern dayWakōthen until 1970 inSaitama Prefecture,just outsideTokyo.

Since the 1980s Riken has expanded dramatically. New labs, centers, and institutes have been established in Japan and overseas, including:

  • in 1984, the Life Science Center inTsukuba
  • in 1995, the Muon Research Facility at theRutherford Appleton Laboratoryin theUK
  • in 1997, the Harima Institute, the Brain Science Institute in Wako, and the center at theBrookhaven National Laboratoryin theUSA
  • in 1998, the Genomic Sciences Center
  • in 2000, the Yokohama Institute, which now contains four centers for research in the life sciences
  • in 2002, the Kobe Institute, which contains the Center for Developmental Biology

In October 2003, Riken's status changed again, toIndependent Administrative Institution.As such, Riken is still publicly funded, and it is periodically evaluated by the government, but it has a higher degree of autonomy than before. Riken is regarded as the flagship research institute in Japan and conducts basic and applied experimental research in a wide range of science and technology fields including physics, chemistry, medical science, biology and engineering.[citation needed]

Riken was the subject of international attention in 2014 after theStimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cell(also known asSTAP) publication, investigation, retraction, and suicide ofYoshiki Sasai,the principal investigator.[citation needed]

Organizational structure

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Main Research Building in Wako
Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe

The main divisions of Riken are listed here. Purely administrative divisions are omitted.

  • Headquarters (mostly in Wako)
  • Wako Branch
    • Center for Emergent Matter Science (research on new materials for reduced power consumption)
    • Center for Sustainable Resource Science (research toward a sustainable society)
    • Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science (site of theRadioactive Isotope Beam Factory,a heavy-ion accelerator complex)
    • Center for Brain Science
    • Center for Advanced Photonics (research on photonics including terahertz radiation)
    • Research Cluster for Innovation
    • Cluster for Pioneering Research (chief scientists)
    • Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program
  • Tokyo Branch
  • Tsukuba Branch
    • BioResource Research Center
  • Harima Institute
  • Yokohama Branch (site of the YokohamaNuclear magnetic resonancefacility)
    • Center for Sustainable Resource Science
    • Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (research toward personalized medicine)
    • Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (also based in Kobe and Osaka)[5]
    • Program for Drug Discovery and Medical Technology Platform
    • Structural Biology Laboratory
    • Sugiyama Laboratory
  • Kobe Branch

Achievements

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  • Two Riken scientists have won theNobel prize for physics:Hideki Yukawain 1949 andShin'ichirō Tomonagain 1965.
  • TheSPring-8(Super Photon Ring 8GeV) facility inHarimais one of the largest and most powerful third-generationsynchrotronradiation facility.[6]
  • In July 2004 a team at Riken createdelement 113(now namednihonium,afterNihon= Japan). On April 2, 2005 the same team successfully created it for the second time, and a third event was seen in 2012. The discovery was officially recognized by theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry(IUPAC) and theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Physics(IUPAP) in December 2015.[7][8]
  • The Riken Super Combined Cluster is one of the world's fastestsupercomputers.In January 2006, Riken set up the Next-Generation Supercomputer R&D Center, with the purpose of designing and building the fastest supercomputer in the world, and in June 2006, it announced the completion of a one-petaFLOPScomputer system designed specially for molecular dynamics simulation.Currently a new system, theK computeris being installed at Riken[needs update]and despite it being still not finished, it topped theLINPACKbenchmark with the performance of 8.162 petaFLOPS, or 8.162 quadrillion calculations per second, with a computing efficiency ratio of 93.0%, making it the fastest supercomputer in the world at the time.[9][10][11][12]The complete project entered service in November 2012.[13]

List of presidents

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  • Dairoku Kikuchi(1917)
  • Kōi Furuichi (1917–1921)
  • Masatoshi Ōkōchi(1921–1946)
  • Yoshio Nishina(1946–1951)
  • Kiichi Sakatani (1951–1952)
  • Takeshi Murayama (1952–1956)
  • Masanori Satō (1956–1958)
  • Haruo Nagaoka (1958–1966)
  • Shirō Akahori (1966–1970)
  • Toshio Hoshino (1970–1975)
  • Shinji Fukui (1975–1980)
  • Tatsuoki Miyajima (1980–1988)
  • Minoru Oda (1988–1993)
  • Akito Arima(1993–1998)
  • Shunichi Kobayashi (1998–2003)
  • Ryōji Noyori(2003 – 31 March 2015)
  • Hiroshi Matsumoto(1 April 2015 – 31 March 2022)[14]
  • Makoto Gonokami(1 April 2022–present)[15]

Notable scientists and affiliated people

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See also

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References

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  1. ^"Introduction to RIKEN (2019)".Riken. Archived fromthe originalon 2021-06-06.Retrieved9 March2021.
  2. ^"MEXT"(PDF).
  3. ^"Partnerships | RIKEN".riken.jp.Retrieved2020-11-16.
  4. ^"Nhân viên ・ dư tính | lý hoá học viện nghiên cứu".riken.jp.Retrieved2024-02-17.
  5. ^Organisational changes are underway in 2018 with some laboratories joining the Center for Integrative Medical Sciences
  6. ^Futura-Sciences."Record: un laser X avec une longueur d'onde de 1,2 angström".Futura-Sciences.Retrieved2016-04-05.
  7. ^"Search for element 113 concluded at last".sciencecodex.26 September 2012.Retrieved2016-04-05.
  8. ^"Discovery Of Element 113 By RIKEN Scientists Completes 7th Row Of Periodic Table".Tech Times.2016-01-05.Retrieved2016-04-05.
  9. ^"Japanese 'K' Computer Is Ranked Most Powerful".The New York Times.20 June 2011.Retrieved20 June2011.
  10. ^"Japan Reclaims Top Ranking on Latest TOP500 List of World's Supercomputers",top500.org,archived fromthe originalon June 23, 2011,retrievedJune 20,2011
  11. ^"K computer, SPARC64 VIIIfx 2.0GHz, Tofu interconnect",top500.org,archived fromthe originalon June 23, 2011,retrievedJune 20,2011
  12. ^"Supercomputer" K computer "Takes First Place in World".RIKEN. Archived fromthe originalon 11 March 2012.Retrieved20 June2011.
  13. ^"With 16 petaflops and 1.6M cores, DOE supercomputer is world's fastest".Ars Technica.18 June 2012.Retrieved2016-04-05.
  14. ^Hiroshi Matsumoto takes helm at Riken,retrieved 7 April 2015
  15. ^"Makoto Gonokami takes office as President of RIKEN"(Press release). RIKEN. 1 April 2022.Retrieved2022-08-18.
  16. ^Kitano, H.; Asada, M.; Kuniyoshi, Y.; Noda, I.; Osawa, E. (1997). "RoboCup".Proceedings of the first international conference on Autonomous agents - AGENTS '97.p. 340.doi:10.1145/267658.267738.ISBN0897918770.S2CID2557966.
[edit]
  • Official websiteEdit this at Wikidata(in English and Japanese)
  • Riken Research(in English and Japanese)– A resource for up-to-date information on key achievements of Riken researchers.