Regarding the promotion of "Full Research", the President has made its objective clear, and directors and group leaders of research units all understand very well the meaning of "Full Research", whether they agree with it or not. But, it is not clear how each unit research plan aligns to the overall AIST mission. There is a large problem in dealing with the mindset of many researchers who have worked for a long time under the old culture. To solve this issue, continuing communication among top management level, directors of the research units, group leaders, and researchers is crucial for understanding why they need to change. Holding a workshop may be an effective tool to emphasize and work through the President's philosophy. On the other hand, top management should not always have to go into details at the lowest level. It is important to define top management responsibilities and middle management responsibilities clearly. For example, there should be a clear distinction between the responsibilities at the director level and the group leader management, which enables them to have an individual contract with researchers within the contents of their responsibilities.

AIST has a very flat structure with 51 research units, with all reporting to the President. The responsibility of vice-presidents and research coordinators has not been clearly defined. This will remain a problem. How to solve it, including the problem of continuity of the policy, will be a big issue in the second interim as well. There was a discussion of making another level in between the top management and the research unit directors to clarify who makes the decision. But having a flat structure has its own merit. We don't know whether a more hierarchical system is the better way or not. We think the AIST needs to study this point, including clarifying the roles of the vice-presidents.

There is a concern that AIST simply looks like a department store of multiple research units. Since AIST actually integrates a very wide range of projects, it is difficult to set up an integrated, unique mission. But, the national research institute needs to have a top-down issue theme that can be really spread out through organization so that each unit can actually move on to the individual research work. Also, interdisciplinary research and fusion of research fields is important, and hopefully there is some kind of loose interaction in each research field and strong interaction among different interdisciplinary research fields. A system for budget allocation to research groups starting an interdisciplinary program is also effective. AIST still has more opportunity and the opportunity to further increase shared projects effectively, not only in the institute but also between institutes.

The budget seems rather low for AIST to do three missions. How much does it cost for industrialization of the technology? It seems necessary to compare with several countries about how much money was spent for applied research, how did it contribute to the industry, and how do they cooperate with the industry.

There does not seem to be enough done in environmental engineering, and the budget for it is insufficient. In order to solve energy, resources, and environmental issues, the government must make informed decisions based on scientific knowledge. We have heard that AIST will contribute also to these government policies. We would like AIST to keep a very positive and decisive viewpoint.

Public Relations (PR) is also very much needed. Therefore business approaches should be introduced into the management team. One approach would be to hire a few business leaders, another is to send some of researchers to business school to encourage scientists and engineers to acquire an MBA. This could actually make AIST more attractive, something of a new, enhanced organization.

Back in 1980s, American companies were very much interested in creating basic research institutes in Japan. However, interest in Japan and worry about Japanese competition is much less today. Of course, there are so many papers published from Japan contributing to international society; so Japan is moving toward more globalization. Young researchers and students of Japan who try to go to US and Europe, and those of US who try to go to Japan, may be decreasing in the number. As an international strategy, not only accepting students from Asian countries, but international human resource development is also necessary. Having group leaders with international backgrounds in a larger number will contribute well to the whole AIST activities.

For technical seeds that you have discovered, and important data you might get out of your research, the standard for participation should not be set so high as to cause a barrier for industries to partner with you. There is a big step from research to commercialization, even including preparation of valuable patents without a hole. It is better to collaborate with industries from an early stage of a research with a low entrance fee. However, intellectual property rights and ownership should be well defined from the start. Firm support will be required at the time of the contract of collaboration, such as how to connect exclusive patent concession.

Although spontaneous collaboration between industry and AIST can be seen, it is a large burden for a researcher to do everything from his own research, to communicating with industry, to informal cooperation, to formal partnerships including intellectual discussion to breaking in further cooperation to industries. It is also important to evaluate a partner's company, "who to work with". We recommend that AIST should build a professional group which deals with information about potential partners and industrial sectors, creating a database of the patents, carrying out the marketing to the most ideal company, or having a waiting list of the companies.

For the external evaluation of each research unit, you have to have in depth and thorough discussion with an expert of that research area. This evaluation and discussion should be done for reorganizations or replacement of the head of a research unit so that each member can understand its necessity. Unless such a process is done, researchers may say that changes that were made are just a change for change sake. That will demoralize researchers. Therefore, only quantitative evaluation should be avoided.

Too much focus on cost-efficiency may lead researchers to do short term research which could abolish the significance of Full Research, and the existence of a research institution. In order to encourage and retain talented researchers, a research institute should have a character irrespective of a positive failure.

With individual evaluation, the group leader and unit director who know the researchers' performance are doing many-sided evaluations, not quantitatively based on a number but qualitatively based on the discussion. It seems there is a mutual reliance on their evaluation. However, there will always be some strain, since the system will collapse at a stretch if the confidential relation collapses between them. Moreover, there is a concern with post-docs who have played an important role in research activities. It is unclear how they fit into this evaluation process, and it is necessary to define a transparent evaluation process for them.

There should be developed an evaluation system to evaluate the supervisor by his/her direct reports, something such as the "360" method used by many corporations in the United States. This is in addition to the evaluation by a director or the President. The evaluation system called an opinion survey is not for individual issue but for a research unit of 100 people, to evaluate the morale of all members of the institute. For evaluation of upper people by those who report to them, the introduction of some kind of system is recommended.

It is very good indeed to see the focus on evaluation of outcomes. Of course researchers can get outcomes only after long years of research work. An evaluation combining output and outcome, or an evaluation from the long-term point of view should be introduced to really come out with a general evaluation. Since the researchers who are directly associated with outcome, even among the directors of the units, may have different interpretation as to outcome evaluation, the qualification of what outcome actually means should be better defined and explained.