By CLIVE COOKSONPublished: May 13, 2002
OKINAWA TO BE SITE OF Dollars 600m PROJECT:
Japan is planning to set up "the world's best scientific university" from scratch on the subtropical island of Okinawa, in the most ambitious proposal to build a new university that the world of higher education has seen for many years.
The Japanese government estimates that the Okinawa graduate university will cost Dollars 600m (Pounds 409m) to build and Dollars 160m a year to run. It will focus on "integrated biology" - bringing different scientific disciplines together to study complex biological systems.
The language of the new institution will be English and more than half the researchers will come from outside Japan. It will be "at the centre of a global network of outstanding institutions around the world", says Koji Omi, the Japanese science minister, "and it will collaborate closely with industry."
Mr Omi, who is the university's principal proponent, has toured research institutes in the US, the UK and Singapore and consulted widely with western scientists in drawing up the plans for the project. Those who have heard about it are enthusiastic.
"This is a really audacious enterprise," says Gregory Verdine, chemistry professor at Harvard University in the US. "We have not seen a university project in the life sciences on this scale in our lifetimes."
David Secher, director of research services at Cambridge University, says: "It is an imaginative and visionary plan. If they invest on the intended scale, they will create something entirely new - with global significance."
Legislation to set up the university passed the Japanese parliament last month, though the funding is not yet secure.
"Prime minister (Junichiro) Koizumi strongly supports the institute," says Mr Omi. "I am confident that it will be ready to begin research in September 2005 and accept graduate students in 2006."
Mr Omi has several reasons for promoting the project. One is that his ministerial portfolio includes Okinawa in addition to science. He believes the project will do wonders for the development of the island, which was handed back to Japan in 1972 after 27 years of US military administration.
It will make Okinawa "the highest-level intellectual cluster in the Asia-Pacific region", he says.
Another objective is to shake up Japan's academic sector, where bright younger researchers are held back by a rigid seniority system. The new institution will be set up outside the existing university system and "will be completely free of bureaucratic interference" from the Japanese government, Mr Omi says.
An important factor in the university's success will be the choice of president. "They must hire a recognised international leader in the world of science," Prof Verdine says.
He believes bright researchers from leading US and European institutions will be happy to move to Okinawa, either on short-term visiting fellowships or long-term contracts.
"No one will lack for funds," Prof Verdine says. "Don't underestimate the appeal of not having to fill in those odious grant renewals."
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