Japan's other research hub

In Japan, Sendai is known for its lush greenery, its nearby hot springs and its beef tongue. Outside Japan, it is hardly known at all. Sendai has long lived in the shadow of the Tokyo/Yokohama hub in the Kanto plain and the Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe triangle that anchors the Kansai region. But it has been responsible for seminal advances in materials science, microelectronics and particle physics. Its researchers, particularly those at the city's core institution, Tohoku University, have a track record for turning basic science into practical, profitable applications. And the university's involvement with world-class facilities, such as the KamLAND antineutrino detector at Kamioka, attract international attention. Meanwhile, local initiatives are helping to attract companies and bring scientific understanding to the public.

Particle physicists in Sendai (top) have led international work on the high-calibre KamLAND antineutrino detector.CITY OF SENDAILAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL GALLERY

All Japanese universities are facing increasing competition and expectations to find practical applications for their basic research. For Sendai to carve a niche, Tohoku University and its neighbouring research institutions will need to work closely with the local business community, launch new projects that bring global collaboration, and overcome the obstacles that make it harder for women (see 'Women's work') and Westerners to work in Japan.

Sendai's mayor, Katsuhiko Umehara, is aware that the city faces tough competition from high-tech hubs within Japan and around the world.

Sendai already has a solid foundation on which to build, says Richard Dasher, director of the US–Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University, California. The Sendai region boasts 13 universities, 5 junior colleges and 2 technical colleges. Overall, these have a total of 80,300 students. Tohoku University alone has more than 2,600 research and teaching staff, some 85% of whom work in the sciences. "If the research there was happening in Tokyo or Kyoto, it would be getting a lot more press," says Dasher.

Competition for the best brains is growing, as the number of students entering Japanese universities has dropped. A nationwide reorganization of the university system in 2004 (see Nature 429, 210–214; 2004) has made it easier for faculty members to move from one institution to another, and for universities to compete for funds. The economic and industrial threat of China and other neighbours also looms, says the city's new mayor, Katsuhiko Umehara. "Global competition is becoming tougher and tougher, so Sendai will need to have a good strategy to compete with other cities, not only in Japan, but also in east Asia and the rest of the world."

However, Sendai has some advantages over its more prominent neighbours. A bounty of trees provides an alternative to the concrete and neon of other Japanese metropolises. It is only a two-hour bullet-train journey from Tokyo, but the buffer zone this distance creates provides the perfect setting for creative work, says mathematician Motoko Kotani. "Somehow, in Tohoku, I feel time goes slowly and quietly, and people can keep some distance from current trends. You can wait patiently for your idea to ripen," she says.

Tohoku University's greatest competitive advantage is its tradition of successful applied research. In the 1920s, two Tohoku University professors invented the Yagi-Uda antenna. This has many applications, one of the most recognizable of which is as a roof-top television antenna. And research dating back to the 1950s led to the development in the 1970s of perpendicular magnetic recording, a technology that is now poised to revolutionize hard disk drives with its tremendous memory capacity.

Many current research projects hold great, if underdeveloped, potential for future industrial application. Researchers at the university's best-known research organization, the Institute of Materials Research (IMR), are trying to turn expertise in collecting and analysing data on combinatorial materials into a new field called materials informatics.

Hideo Ohno, who heads the university's Laboratory for Nanoelectronics and Spintronics, says the key to these Tohoku achievements has been a tradition of going back to the fundamentals in parallel with working closely with industry. Ohno's own discovery — that electricity can be used to control the magnetic properties of semiconductors — led to the development of low-power-consumption semiconductor devices. "Researchers are aware of the needs of those outside academia even though they are working on basic research," he says. Likewise, Tadahiro Ohmi's Fluctuation-Free Facility for Information Industry lists a dozen core companies that are participating in his efforts to develop malfunction-free sub-100-nanometre semiconductors and other semiconductor technologies. "We try to stay 15 years ahead of industry, as we will be leading it into the future," says Yasuyuki Shirai, an assistant professor at the facility.

City-wide, regional and international collaborations are trying to make the most of this cutting-edge research. In 2002, the education ministry designated Sendai an 'Intelligence Knowledge Cluster' as part of an initiative that gives the city about ¥500 million (US$4.35 million) per year for five years to develop 'intelligent electronics'. The dozen joint-research projects between industry and Japanese corporations are aimed directly at society's welfare — for example, monitoring devices that accurately estimate energy consumption to help in the treatment of diabetic patients. Some of these projects are expected to boost the Sendai–Finland Wellbeing Center, a collaboration established in 2005 to promote the self-reliance of one of Japan's largest and fastest growing markets — the elderly. The 12 research projects are dominated by Tohoku University researchers, but two projects are being led by Sendai National College of Technology and one by Tohoku Institute of Technology.

The trade ministry is also funding regional cluster programmes. Since 2001, it has given about ¥700 million per year to a project involving hundreds of academic organizations and small to medium-sized businesses that endeavours to turn successful academic work into commercial technologies aimed at helping Japan's ageing population. About ¥380 million per year has been allotted to a similar consortium of academic and industrial organizations looking for technologies to promote a sustainable society.

Some supporting mechanisms are already in place. The Intelligent Cosmos Research Institute has had some success in attracting research and development companies to the region since 1989. In 2004, the ¥3.2-billion Tohoku Incubation Fund started investing in university ventures. Sendai city is also converting an 81-hectare golf course into a science park in the hope that 50 companies, from inside and outside Japan, will set up business there.

But it remains unclear how much the local economy or Tohoku University will benefit from even the highest-impact research. Venture-capital support for local businesses lags behind that of other research hubs such as Osaka. Many scientists are happy to stick to basic research questions or collaborate with researchers far and wide — neither of which contributes to building a foundation for local industry. The semiconductor fabrication research at Ohmi's laboratory has been tremendously influential since the 1980s, but has generated little profit for the university as the group has tended to share their protocols freely with others in the field. "We want the technology to be used anywhere that researchers can take advantage of it," says Shirai.

Access to some unique facilities is another of Sendai's great draws. Tohoku particle physicists, for example, have led an international collaboration of scientists from 13 institutions on the KamLAND antineutrino detector. The detector has a 1,000-tonne tank holding a liquid whose molecules emit light when antineutrinos collide with them. KamLAND is 400 kilometres from Sendai and is buried in an old mine shaft to screen out other subatomic particles. Machines as extensive and well-protected as this are rare, with only a handful worldwide, and this team has taken advantage of its location to discover new aspects of antineutrinos emitted from Japan's various nuclear reactors. The team has developed the field of neutrino geophysics, which uses the detection of antineutrinos released by radioactive elements within Earth to answer questions about Earth's heat balance.

The microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) facilities headed by Masayoshi Esashi also draw international and domestic researchers. But many of the 350 researchers — including 20 foreigners — who have come to Sendai from 39 labs are hoping for profit beyond publication. Esashi says that 35 years of experience is being brought to bear on MEMS, which integrate sensors and other electrical equipment on a single chip. "The knowledge is managed to be accessible, which I think should be the mission of the university," he says.

The tranquil surroundings of Tohoku University offer a perfect setting for creative thought.TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

These ties give good reason for Sendai to be optimistic about possible industrial applications. Esashi has spun off a company called MEMS Core, and a 'MEMS Park Consortium', which was established in 2004 with Sendai's assistance, has gathered more than 110 members.

And in a university system increasingly being modelled on the US system, some natives still find the Japanese way a boon to research. "People do not move from company to company in Japan, so companies do not mind dispatching them to the university. They will come back," says Esashi. "We are taking advantage of Japanese work habits to get a good collaboration."

Researchers are also buoyed by positive support from the community. Being recognized and accepted as a scientist makes adapting to life in Japan easier, says Alexandre Kozlov, a Russian-born Australian neutrino researcher (see 'At home in Sendai').

The city of Sendai has worked with the university to cultivate this awareness. A monthly science café is held in the architecturally innovative Sendai Mediatheque, a seven-storey structure with irregular tubes running through it that house elevators and staircases. The monthly events introduce researchers' work to the hundred or so high-school students and other local residents that show up. Kotani's lecture was introduced by Sendai's mayor, who discussed the significance of mathematics using Fermat's theorem as an example.

Dasher is concerned that, despite support from the city and Sendai's various attractions, many students leave the Tohoku region for industry jobs in Tokyo or Osaka after a BS or MS degree. He thinks that changes in Japan's economy will enhance the value of PhD holders and university research in general — drawing more attention from students and industry alike to Tohoku University's fields of expertise.

If predictions prove right, Sendai and Tohoku University will shine. Dasher, who now works as a special adviser to the president of Tohoku University, says: "It reminds me of Silicon Valley before it became known as Silicon Valley."

Women's work

Mathematician Motoko Kotani (pictured) rose to fame in Japan without facing much discrimination. But a star female researcher is still a rare event in Japan, and Kotani and others at Tohoku University have set out to level the playing field.

At present, 11.9% of Japanese scientists are female, a figure well below that of most industrialized countries. The central government has struggled to take greater advantage of female brainpower with various policies, but so far results have been modest.

Kotani, who is involved in an initiative to help Japanese women scientists advance their careers, says the key is helping women over certain stumbling blocks. These include encouraging female students to consider a career in science, helping researchers balance the demands of childbirth and child rearing with their careers, and ensuring that women do not feel overwhelmed by their minority status.

Tohoku University has historically been a leader. In 1913, it became the first of Japan's imperial universities to allow female students. In 2002, it established the Sawayanagi Prize, which is awarded to a successful research collaboration between women and men.

But Tohoku University remains below the national average: only 7.7% of faculty members, and only 6.3% of science faculty members, are female. Starting this year, Tohoku established policies to change this. Nurseries have been set up to care for children, and provide medical treatment when children are sick, and part-time workloads and support staff are available to working mothers.

Most notably, Tohoku University has established the 'science angels', a group of 40 graduate students who visit schools and encourage students to become scientists, thereby providing much-needed role models. The science angels also work to bring women at the university together.

The goal is to have women make inroads at all levels. By 2020, for example, they hope to have 30% of all committee seats and senior positions filled by women.

Kotani, who last year won Japan's Saruhashi Prize, which recognizes the work of Japanese women in science, says the solitary, theoretical nature of her research might have helped her avoid the more egregious forms of discrimination that a woman on a large experimental team might experience. "In maths, you don't need any facilities — only talent — and you are judged by what you have done alone," she says. She hopes the Tohoku project will extend this freedom to all Japanese women scientists.

D.C.

At home in Sendai

Japan has a reputation for being a difficult place for non-Japanese scientists to work, in terms of language, culture and the different ways in which research is organized. But some outsiders have adapted to Sendai.

Richard Smith, a supercritical-fluids specialist at Tohoku University, has taught physics classes in English with some success. "The students study hard — if you give them the materials beforehand, they will come prepared," he says.

Daily life necessities, such as English-speaking doctors, are also accessible, says Alexandre Kozlov, a Russian-born Australian neutrino researcher whose second child was born in Japan. Kozlov says it was a joy to work in the orderly and efficient Japanese group on the KamLAND neutrino projects. "Each member could have done various parts of the experiment, but they each knew their role and did it well," he says.

Rather than being a barrier, some foreign researchers say the cultural aspects are a big draw. Smith says the koza or chair system, in which a strict hierarchy is maintained in the laboratory, is an essential foundation for mutual support and mentoring among his junior faculty and students. "They wouldn't know what to do without it," he says.

D.C.