The Brain Science Institute (BSI) at RIKEN, Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, is a magnet for young Japanese neuroscientists. But some young neuroscientists worry that the emphasis on limited-term contracts at the BSI does not provide them with long-term stability.

Founded in 1997, the BSI is the first Japanese neuroscience research institute dedicated exclusively to basic science. It employs 600 researchers in 35 research laboratories that span all fields of neuroscience. Located at RIKEN's Wako campus, some 30 minutes from central Tokyo, the BSI offers working conditions and funding opportunities that far exceed what scientists can expect in Japan's academic environment.

But Japan's finance ministry has kept tight control on the creation of any new faculty positions at Japan's national research institutes or universities — which means that all scientists at the BSI have a five-year contract that, in principle, is not renewable. Scientists who have not been promoted to the position of group leader during the five years have to leave the institute.

Limited-term positions are especially problematic for female scientists. Although more female researchers are joining the BSI, there are virtually no female group leaders. Women scientists in Japan have generally had a difficult time rising to top positions (see Nature 410, 404–406; 2001). Nevertheless, some women at the BSI say they prefer the short-term contract there compared with the difficulty they face getting a permanent university position.

Masao Ito, director of the institute, which he helped to establish, defends the limited-term policy, arguing that it is meant “to increase the mobility of young researchers”. But as the pool of established neuroscience researchers in Japan is fairly small, the BSI faces increasing competition for senior faculty from large national universities.

Earlier this year, an international advisory panel urged the BSI to consider setting up a number of long-term faculty appointments to ensure that the institute keeps the most successful scientists. As universities gain more independence from central government over the next few years, competition for successful faculty will only increase.

The BSI's attempts to negotiate a more equal distribution of tenured positions with RIKEN's various institute laboratories have so far yielded little success. All of the 650 tenured positions at RIKEN are held by scientists in traditional institutes, rather than newer set-ups such as the BSI.

The BSI's emphasis on limited-term contracts is intertwined with its history, which goes back to the 'frontier research system' — a special research-funding scheme set-up by the government and RIKEN in the mid-1980s. The well-funded programme was meant to attract foreign scientists for temporary periods. Ito took over the directorship of that programme, and used it as a basis to expand neuroscience research and to launch the BSI. Many of the neuroscience laboratories established within the frontier programme later moved into the adjacent new building of the BSI located at the same campus. But finding a way to overcome that history, by allowing some tenured positions within the BSI, may well give the institute — or at least the scientists working in it — a brighter future.

Web links

Brain Science Institute

http://www.brain.riken.go.jp

National Institute of Neuroscience

http://www.ncnp.go.jp/nin

Mitsubishi Institute of Life Sciences

http://www.m-kagaku.co.jp/english/aboutmcc/RD/relation/life.htm

Neuroscience Research Institute

http://unit.aist.go.jp/neurosci/english/english.htm

Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience

http://www1.sphere.ne.jp/tmin