Akira Kira Director SPring-8 / JASRI This issue of SPring-8 R esearch Frontiers contains highlights of the research results and the facility improv ement at SPring-8 in its 5-th year , a period from September 2001 to August 2002. In this period, the number of publications increased steeply . SPring-8 has entered upon a phase to reap a rich harvest at many beamlines after long prepar ation for experiments. A gov ernment committee, w h i c h r e v i e w e d S P r i n g - 8 f r o m t h e a u t u m n o f 2 0 0 1 t o t h e s u m m e r o f 2 0 0 2 , p o i n t e d o u t t h a t SPring-8 has shifted from a construction period to real utilization period. The review committee also advised that SPring-8 should be oper ated in a more str ategic wa y than it had been. In response to it, the priority policies will be applied to the beam-time allocation from the latter half of 2003. Virtually , SPring-8 has given a priority to projects, the Protein 3000 and the Nanotechnology Support, which were implemented on the basis of the gov ernment’ s science and technology policies. Efforts were made to encour age the industrial applications which had not so progressed as had b e e n e x p e c t e d . I n N ov e m b e r 2 0 0 1 , a p u b l i c b e a m l i n e d e d i c a t e d t o i n d u s t r i a l a p p l i c a t i o n s i n mate rial s scie nce star ted operation. It was main ly on this beam line that expe rime nts unde r a T ri al -U se pr og ram we re co nd uc te d fo r in du st ri al us er s wh o we re no t fa mi li ar wi th sy nc hr ot ro n r adiation. Some of the results obtained in this progr am are included in this issue. In March 2002, a c o n s o r t i u m o f p h a r m a c e u t i c a l c o m p a n i e s o p e n e d a c o n t ra c t b e a m l i n e d e d i c a t e d t o p r o t e i n structure analysis. I would be happy if some of the articles in this issue would stimulate readers’ mind or trigger readers’ new actions. 5
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