Director-General, AIST Hokkaido
Kaoru SUZUKI, Ph.D.
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is one of the largest national institutes in Japan. AIST covers a variety of research fields in the following 5 departments and 2 centers; Energy and Environment, Life Science and Biotechnology, Information Technology and Human Factors, Materials and Chemistry, Electronics and Manufacturing, Geological Survey, and Metrology Standards. The aim of our institute is to conduct research activities in the wide research fields, and to transfer those results to industries toward innovation.
The Regional Research Base of AIST in Hokkaido (AIST Hokkaido) has been located at Sapporo city to provide two functional features in Hokkaido, original research activities and Technobridge® functions to promote collaboration with regional and nationwide companies.
As for research activities, we have two Research Units, the Bioproduction Research Institute and the Energy Process Research Institute in AIST Hokkaido. The Bioproduction Research Institute is promoting production of valuable substances in transgenic plants and microorganisms and agricultural production by utilization of useful microorganisms. The Energy Process Research Institute is conducting research and development to enhance productivity and recovery of natural gas from natural methane hydrate reservoir.
As for collaboration functions, the Odori Site at Sapporo downtown provides technical support for regional companies in Hokkaido in cooperation with the Hokkaido Intelligent Network Terminal (HiNT), in which major universities, research institutes, local governments, and financial organizations in Hokkaido are cooperatively working as members. Furthermore, our Innovation Coordinators of AIST Hokkaido find and understand technical needs of the regional companies. The variety of research activities in AIST Hokkaido and whole AIST research departments would support the companies by collaborative research and technology transfer.
We aim for the creation of regional innovation by whole AIST research activities in collaboration with regional industry, academia, and government.