214 General General The 10th Anniversary This year SPring-8 celebrated the 10th anniversary of its inauguration. During the last decade, SPring-8 has scientifically and technologically grown into maturity by evolving itself as one of the most advanced third generation synchrotron radiation facilities in the world, and has been successfully generating a vast number of high-level attainments in academic and industrial domains. Figure 1 shows the logos adopted to symbolize this important year in the history of SPring-8. All the events organized by SPring-8 were associated with these logos throughout this year, the list of which can be found in the sections of “Users Meeting” and “Conferences and Workshops” in this publication. Fig. 1. The logos used to celebrate the 10th anniversary of SPring-8 inauguration. The 10th anniversary was highlighted by the ceremony officially held October 19, 2007 in Himeji, and by the memorial symposium held in Harima Science Garden City on the following day. The ceremony hosted about 300 important guests from political, business, academic and local communities. The ceremony began by the welcome address given by Professor Ryoji Noyori, President of RIKEN. Mr. Yukihide Hayashi, Deputy Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Mr. Toshizou Ido, Prefecture Governor of Hyogo, and Professor Ichirou Kanazawa, President of Science Council of Japan addressed, expressing their expectations to SPring-8 that would continuously play an important role in advancing science and technology in Japan as well as in contributing to the industry development with respect to its spectacular achievements established so far. The general introduction, the attainments in science and technology, industrial applications, and historical overview and outlook were presented by Dr. Akira Kira, Director General of Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI), Mr. Masayuki Nagata, Managing Executive Director of JASRI, and Professor Hiromichi Kamitsubo, Special Advisor of RIKEN, respectively. Mr. Tetsurou Kawakami, Chairman of JASRI gave a closing address for the successful ceremony. The Memorial Symposium The Memorial Symposium for the 10th Anniversar for the 10th Anniversary y The memorial symposium held on the following day consisted with two parts, i.e., the first one “The Past and Future of SPring-8,” and the second one “Door to the next generation (the second part was doubled as The “2nd XFEL Symposium”). The opening remarks for the symposium were given by Dr. Akira Kira. The symposium had a pleasure of the company of Mr. Satoru Ohtake, Manager of basic and generic research division, MEXT, and of his complimentary address. The first part of the symposium was initiated by Professor Hiromichi Kamitsubo who gave an review talk on SPring-8 by looking its persistent progress in the past and by foreseeing its ultimate goal in future. Dr. Rafael Abela of PSI, Dr. J. Murray Gibson of APS, and Professor Keng S. Liang of NSRRC delivered congratulatory addresses on the 10th anniversary of SPring-8. The second part was opened by Professor Tetsuya Ishikawa, Director of RIKEN SPring-8 Center, who gave a review talk entitled “Compact X-ray Free Electron Laser at SPring-8.” Professor John N. Galayda of SLAC, Professor Jerome B. Hastings of SLAC, and Professor Jochen R. Schneider of DESY made review talks introducing their free electron laser projects. Professor Hiroyoshi Suematsu, Director of RIKEN Harima Institute, gave a closing address for the successful symposium. Reviews Conducted Reviews Conducted Interim Assessment by MEXT In July, MEXT released the interim assessment of SPring-8. The assessment reported that SPring-8 had been playing an important role by expanding academic user distributions in materials science, life science, and other fields of science and technology, and by establishing the advanced applications in industrial domain as well. Having reported the excellent status of SPring-8, the assessment indicated the guideline as follows: (1) By designing systematic programs for operation and maintenance, the accelerator complex of SPring-8 should be stably operated with an annual operation time of 5000 hours, at least, eventually reaching 5500 hours. (2) It is important to continuously conduct R&D for accelerators as well as for high brilliance SR sources. (3) With conducting high-level research activities by an appropriate number of in-house staff, it is highly required for SPring-8 to establish a user support system that efficiently and effectively promote research outcome. Following the interim assessment, Minister of MEXT issued an amended policy as well as a guideline for the promotion of the public utilization of SPring-8 at the beginning of October, with newly emphasizing the following points: • The enhancement of human resources in order to continuously update the SPring-8, and to maintain the high-level research capability of the user-supporting organization. • The importance of generating a decent number of eminent research attainment in order to appropriately respond to society. Review of Medical Biology Trail Use JASRI formed a review committee for evaluating “Medical Biology Trail Use,” which was introduced to exploit potential users from medical-biology domain. The committee reviewed the proposal selection process, the user support system, and the research activities. The committee highly evaluated this program and strongly recommended its continuation, by pointing out that the program had succeeded in exploiting new users nationwide, of which research subjects were considered to be scientifically novel and well advanced. Recommendation of Advisory Committee for Industry-academia-government Collaboration The committee established by JASRI for promotion of industry-academia-government collaboration at SPring-8 recommended that JASRI should actively develop and introduce such a utilization scheme that would facilitate industrial applications at SPring-8 by (1) promoting the innovation-oriented industry- academia-government collaborative projects, (2) introducing group utilization scheme targeting common achievements among participating parties, (3) enhancing the quality of user support system with charging its cost to users such as mail-in service, and (4) making the barrier as low as possible in utilizing SPring-8 for new users. 215
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