President's Greeting

Happy New Year. As we welcome 2026, I would like to extend my warmest greetings to all of you.

This year is a special milestone for us. In 2026, NIMS marks the 25th anniversary of its founding, while we also commemorate the 70th anniversary of the former National Research Institute for Metals and the 60th anniversary of the former National Institute for Research in Inorganic Materials, the predecessor organizations of NIMS. Building on the legacy of these institutions, we remain committed to advancing materials science for the benefit of society.

Around the world, the structure of our societies and economies is undergoing a profound transformation driven by global environmental challenges, constraints on energy and resources, and rising geopolitical risks. On the science and technology front, generative AI, which emerged only three years ago, is now exerting a major impact across society. While AI is transforming work in virtually every field, it has also brought about the serious issue of rapidly increasing electricity consumption. Unless truly energy-efficient devices are developed, there is growing concern that this trend may have grave consequences for the global environment in the years ahead.

As global competition in next-generation semiconductor development intensifies, many countries, including Japan, are making nationwide efforts to revive their semiconductor industries. At the same time, it is important to recognize that Japan’s materials industry continues to play a vital role in supporting the global semiconductor ecosystem. In alignment with these strengths of Japan’s materials sector, NIMS established, on April 1, 2025, a new semiconductor materials research field within the Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectnics (MANA). This new field is dedicated to fundamental research for future generations of semiconductor technologies, including novel carrier materials such as two-dimensional materials, neuromorphic devices, and advanced nanoscale interconnect materials, and we have been actively recruiting researchers to drive this effort. NIMS also conducts part of the materials research for next-generation semiconductors within the Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center (LSTC), a national technology research association. In close collaboration with these next-generation semiconductor projects, we are firmly committed to advancing long-term, future-oriented fundamental research that looks well beyond the current generation of technologies.

There is no doubt, judging from the developments of the past three years, that AI will continue to drive innovation in every field of work. AI also has the potential to fundamentally transform the way we develop materials. For this reason, NIMS has designated “AI for Materials” as a key strategic focus for fiscal year 2026. Under the previous mid-term plan, we began developing the Materials Data Platform (MDPF), and on September 30th 2025, a new data service was launched to share part of the data collected through the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Materials and Nanotechnology (ARIM) project funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). In addition, we have launched “pinax,” a machine learning system that enables researchers to analyze and make effective use of diverse datasets for data-driven materials research.

In parallel, since the previous mid-term period we have promoted our “Smart Lab” initiative for automated experimentation. Some researchers are already using automated synthesis, measurement, and characterization as part of their daily research workflows. Our next goal is to link data and automated experiments in an intelligent and seamless way using AI, thereby realizing “autonomous self-driving experimentation” that integrates everything from exploration of experimental conditions and experiment planning to execution, evaluation, and proposals for subsequent experiments.
Of course, no single system can handle every class of material. Therefore, NIMS is working to build multiple systems optimized for different materials and processes—such as bulk materials, powders, solutions, thin films, and molecular or polymeric materials—and to interconnect these systems with the MDPF through AI. By doing so, we aim to establish an autonomous, self-driving experimentation platform that will dramatically accelerate materials research.

At the same time, contributing to the fields of energy, the environment, and economic security is another crucial mission for NIMS. Building on the priority topic launched in fiscal year 2025, “Basic Research on Hydrogen-related Materials,” we will further advance research on materials that support carbon neutrality and a circular economy, as well as structural materials that underpin resilient social infrastructure. In particular, we will make maximum use of shared research facilities, including the Hydrogen Environment Materials Test Facility established last year, and further strengthen collaboration with universities, research institutes, and companies in Japan and abroad to generate world-leading results.

To sustain these ambitious endeavors, we must continue to enhance our research infrastructure and research environment. Addressing chronic space shortages and the deterioration of aging facilities remains a major challenge, especially as our research activities expand. We will therefore move forward with the construction of new buildings as a fundamental solution to our space constraints.

Needless to say, people are at the heart of research. In an era of population decline and intensifying global competition for talent, Japan can maintain leadership in materials science only by attracting, developing, and empowering diverse and outstanding researchers from around the world. At NIMS, we are actively working to identify and support young talents who will transform NIMS in the future and to provide opportunities for their growth and success. As part of these efforts in Japan, NIMS has concluded joint graduate school agreements with seven research universities, including the University of Tsukuba. Under these agreements, we employ participating graduate students as NIMS Junior Researchers, creating an environment in which they can pursue doctoral studies without financial anxiety while engaging in cutting-edge research.

Given Japan’s demographic trends, it is no longer realistic to search for all our materials science talent within Japan alone. NIMS therefore takes a global perspective on talent development and regards Southeast Asia and India—regions where substantial human mobility is expected in the coming years—as particularly important partners. We have already concluded an International Cooperative Graduate Program (ICGP) with 10 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). With some of these partner universities, collaboration has evolved into a Joint Research Center framework that enables faculty members and graduate students to undertake a long-term research stay at NIMS. Through these activities, we are steadily achieving tangible outcomes in joint research and researcher mobility. Going forward, we will work to build an international ecosystem for talent circulation in which young researchers who will lead the future of materials science can study and conduct research at NIMS and then advance to the next stages of their careers worldwide.

We are also strengthening support for early-career researchers, including postdoctoral researchers, Research fellows of the International Center for Young Scientists (ICYS), and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellows. By improving their working conditions and career development support, and by fostering a culture of challenge and collaboration in an excellent research environment, we believe we can build NIMS’s most important asset—its people. We aspire for NIMS to be an attractive and “chosen” option in the career paths of young researchers who will shape the future of science and technology in Japan.

I would like to close by asking for your continued support and guidance in the year ahead. I wish you all a healthy, productive, and fulfilling 2026.