The International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), one of the five Japanese institutions of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative Program (WPI), received from the WPI program committee a high appraisal for the activity in fiscal year 2009 together with IPMU (WPI center at University of Tokyo) and IFReC (WPI center at Osaka University). The main reasons for the high evaluation of MANA were (a) the high value of more than 50% of the foreign nationality researchers in MANA, (b) the successful invitation to MANA of excellent researchers with tenured positions from inside and outside Japan, and (c) the enhancement of technical and administrative supports for foreign researchers by public use of English, which was evaluated to be a suitable management for a WPI center.

The WPI program committee also pointed out that the following improvements are needed at MANA to meet the WPI program objectives: 1) clearly distinguish between science being done at MANA and at the host institute NIMS, 2) grand challenge to create new material science, 3) strengthen the nano-bio field.

The WPI Program by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) provides priority support for projects creating world-top level research centers with "global visibility" that attract top researchers from all over the world. MANA was selected for this program in FY 2007 as one of five institutions in Japan.