The Japan Times

February 7, 2004

The government on Friday chose a British molecular biologist and Nobel laureate to head a new graduate school in natural sciences that will be set up in Okinawa.

Sydney Brenner, 77, agreed to accept the post during an early January meeting in the United States with Toshimitsu Motegi, state minister in charge of issues relating to Okinawa and the disputed Russian-held islands off Hokkaido, officials said.

The government will discuss the terms of employment with Brenner, the officials said.

Currently serving as a research professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, Brenner is vice chairman of the ad hoc committee on the establishment of the Okinawa school.

The government says it hopes to make the graduate school, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in the village of Onna in northern Okinawa, the best research and learning institute in the world.

The government had been looking for an overseas Nobel Prize winner to lead and represent the school, which is to be established as a state-sponsored project in fiscal 2005.

The project, unveiled in 2001, was conceived to boost Japan's competence in basic research and to promote the economy in the prefecture, which lags behind the mainland in terms of infrastructure development.

Under the project, a preparatory entity will open a research laboratory in fiscal 2005. It plans to turn the lab into a graduate school once the number of researchers reaches about 50.

The government plans to draw the majority of faculty members and students to the school from abroad. The school will focus on biotechnology and other related disciplines, while the courses will be offered in English.

Brenner was awarded one-third of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2002 for his pioneering 1970s study focusing on how specific genes regulate organ growth.

He shared the prize with H. Robert Horvitz, a U.S. scientist, and John E. Sulston, another Briton.

Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine said in a statement Friday that he was "filled with joy" over the government's decision.

Brenner is "not only a superb scientist but also has a friendly personality," Inamine said. "Okinawa Prefecture will do its best to welcome him as the president of the school."

The Japan Times: Feb. 7, 2004 (C) All rights reserved

The Japan Times

April 12, 2003

A planned technology graduate school in Okinawa will be located in the village of Onna on Okinawa island, Hiroyuki Hosoda, the state minister in charge of Okinawa affairs, said Friday.

The municipal government of Onna, a resort area in the western part of the island, owns 90 percent of the proposed 280-hectare site for the school, making it easy to secure the property for construction.

It beat out the city of Itoman and the village of Kitanakagusuku.

"For the village of Onna, this is a historic day," Mayor Fumiyasu Shikiya said.

Shikiya said he hopes to work closely with the national and prefectural governments so the construction will proceed smoothly.

Scheduled to open in September 2007, the school will be established by the public sector but run privately.

The institute is part of a promotion and development plan for Okinawa in line with a special law that took effect a year ago aimed at narrowing disparities between the mainland and the prefecture, which is lagging behind economically.

Hosoda said there are a few candidates to serve as president and he would like to choose one as soon as possible.

According to the construction plan, about 100 hectares of the land needs to be developed at an estimated cost of 6 billion yen, while the land acquisition cost will run about 3.5 billion yen. The village has offered to lease free of charge the portion of the land it owns.

The graduate school, whose official English name is yet to be decided, aims to become the world's best research institute in the fields of life sciences and nanotechnology.

According to the Okinawa Development Council of the Cabinet Office, which is overseeing the project, all classes at the school will be taught in English.

Nobel laureate Jerome Friedman, a physics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, heads the international advisory board for the project.

The Japan Times: April 12, 2003
(C) All rights reserved

The Ryukyu Shimpo News

April 11, 2003

Speaking at a press conference held at the Cabinet Office on the 11th, Okinawa Development Agency Director Hiroyuki Hosoda announced that Onna Village is finally confirmed as the site of the proposed Graduate Science University.

Onna Village is a resort area on the west coast of Okinawa proper, with an abundance of natural environment. It will lend itself quite naturally to the needs of a research community, Hosoda stated.

The municipal government's offer of free land proved one of the most decisive factors in the government's decision.

Hosoda also mentioned the two other sites that had been short-listed. He said that both Itoman and Kitanakagusuku were excellent locations, and that it had been hard to make a choice among them.

The Onna site in all is 280 hectares, the largest of the three. Of the land needed, 87% is municipally owned. Some of the land in question was previously occupied by US military facilities, notably a communications site.

"We have to provide peripheries such as a shopping center and schools for the children of the academics," acknowledged Hosoda.

The minister has several candidates in mind as nominees for the position of first president, and said he would chose before the end of the year.

The land at Onna slopes towards the coast, a cause for some worry that the cost of preparing it for major construction work will be high. A further concern is soil erosion and its impact upon the sea.

An official of the Cabinet Office answered the concerns by explaining, "The natural landscape can be exploited by creating a series of terraces to minimize construction costs.

"On the question of erosion, the latest technological methods can be applied to minimize wash- off into the sea."

In Okinawa, Onna Village office staff declared that it was a historical day for Onna. They had made a banner announcing, "The Graduate University is coming."
(Apr 11 pm ed)