BSAC 2016 Report
The BSAC report is divided into two sections: The first section is a Summary of the main
points the BSAC wishes to stress, and the second section is a detailed presentation of
our findings and recommendations related to the four Terms of Reference provided byPresident Matsumoto.

Main Points
The Brain Science Institute (BSI) of Riken is a world renowned center of excellence in
Neuroscience. It is the nexus FOR Japanese Neuroscience, fostering many interactions
with foreign universities (e.g. RIKEN-MIT collaboration) and attracting budding andestablished scientists, from students to Nobel Laureates, to Japan. This extraordinary
legacy, we feel, should be preserved and nurtured by strengthening and ensuring its
future. The BSAC noted that, under the leadership of Susumu Tonegawa, theinternationality and the scientific quality of BSI has been further improved and a truly
modern institute has emerged where exceptional researchers, young and old, canpursue their innovative science at the highest possible level, representing a model for
how science should be done in Japan and elsewhere.
With this in mind, the BSAC identifies the following critical issues that could threaten theinternational excellence which has been so carefully built by previous directors.
•

Uncertainty for current PIs The BSAC noted a high level of anxiety amongst
the current PIs owing to the impending restructuring of RIKEN and the BSI. One
major area of concern is budget uncertainties. For example, budget cuts are
sometimes implemented in the middle of a fiscal year, making planning forexperiments and personnel very difficult.
Most importantly, however the PIs were worried about the crucial date of March
2018, which, for them, was an almost magical deadline beyond which noplanning was possible. They are under the impression that their contracts end on
this date, and moreover that post-docs cannot be told their employment cancontinue beyond that date. It is crippling to the science of these PIs if they cannot
plan for longer than 18 months and if every job advertisement must indicate
employment ends on March 2018. The BSAC was assured by the leadership of
BSI (Mr. Okouchi) that this is a misperception and that PIs and postdocs can plan
until 2023, at the least. The BSAC feels it is imperative to quickly andunequivocally communicate this information to the PIs. It is also essential that the
RIKEN central HR department should not require that the March 2018 doomsday
is indicated in every job advertisement. These steps are imperative to ensure thatthe quality of science and the morale of the PIs remain high, despite theinevitable uncertainty about the future.

•

Importance of future Director. The BSI has a legacy, starting from the first
director and continuing unbroken, of fantastic and inspired leadership which has
positioned the BSI not only as the leading Neuroscience institute in Japan, butalso a globally-recognized hub of innovation and excellence. In order to stay on
this stellar trajectory, the choice of the new BSI director is of critical importance.
The new director must be, above-all, an internationally recognized leader in
Neuroscience with an outstanding track record of cutting-edge innovation in
research as well as leadership skills and vision.

•

A minimum “critical mass” for the BSI. Interdisciplinarity lies at the heart ofmodern neuroscience and this simply cannot be maintained if entire approaches
are unrepresented or minimally represented amongst the faculty. Budget cuts
have reduced the BSI size from ~59 PIs at its peak in 2008, to 38 currently. In
order to nurture the current cross-disciplinary BSI investigations and facilitate
new interactions, the size of the BSI should be not be reduced, but rather
increased to include new initiatives. The BSAC thus strongly recommends a sizeof around 45 investigators.

•

Preserving leadership. Japan, along with several other notable nations, hasrecently announced a national brain program. The BSI is in a leading position for
the neuroscience community in Japan and is a flagship for brain sciences in thenext decade. The investment that Japan has made in BSI over the last 20 years
should be preserved.

Terms of ReferenceTerms of Reference 1.
The committee feels strongly that BSI has fully achieved its research and training
mission. Over the last decade, BSI has developed into a leading international brain
research institute. Many young, upcoming scientists of great ability were recruited, andare just gaining the momentum to make research breakthroughs. BSI has developed anadmirable track record that includes extensive internal and external collaborations.
Despite budget cutbacks, the number of high-profile papers has increased and is very
impressive, giving BSI an international stature. Moreover, BSI has developed as apremier institution for the training of young Japanese and international neuroscientists.
Overall, by all measures BSI has been a major success.
The committee recommends that BSI should pursue the following goals over the coming
5-10 years:
1. A new BSI director with an outstanding scientific track record and an international
reputation should be appointed as soon as possible with the mandate to further
develop the institute and reinforce the achieved level of excellence. This director
should be provided with the autonomy to make programmatic and budgetarydecisions that allow her/him to respond to and to exploit the most recent
developments in the rapidly changing field of neuroscience.
2. Strengthen and consolidate the recent advances in research at BSI, and takeadvantage of the existing research momentum by providing calculable funding
and a transparent perspective to BSI’s research groups. For this purpose, it isstrongly advised that BSI retains its full autonomy in terms of programmatic andbudgetary decisions, and that the future of BSI as a research center within
RIKEN is clarified as soon as possible.
3. Part of the reason for BSI’s success was the strong interdisciplinary collaboration
among groups. This should be expanded if possible, but requires that a minimal
critical mass of laboratories with diverse types of expertise be maintained.
4. BSI has not recruited new young PI’s since 2013. New continuous recruitments
are necessary to adapt rapidly to the quickly changing technologies and concepts
in neuroscience. The gap in recruitment is already noticeable at BSI. Resuming
recruiting at least one PI annually is advised.
5. BSI is not only a full-fledged international research center, but also a hub ofJapanese neuroscience – a reputation and prestige that took hard work to build,
but can be easily lost. It is advised that BSI strengthens its integration into theinternational and Japanese neuroscience community as an autonomous
research center. For this purpose, collaborations and common initiatives with
universities are strongly encouraged. However, the committee warns against
trying to mandate specific collaborations in neuroscience because the dynamics
of neuroscience render such defined initiatives often unproductive (in otherwords, trying to tell people what to do is counterproductive).
6. The committee advises that BSI should not focus its research onto a particulararea or theme of neuroscience. Focusing on a particular neuroscience area
would limit the potential of BSI as a leading research center because
neuroscience is increasingly multidisciplinary and is rapidly changing. In this day
and age, access to multiple research areas in neuroscience is required forbreakthroughs, and most advances happen in the interactions between
neuroscience subfields and between neuroscience and other scientificdisciplines.
7. Even the most basic neuroscience research aims to address questions ofimportance for human conditions, in particular diseases, but most majoradvances in understanding diseases emerged from studies of basic biologies,
not of the diseases themselves. Thus, the committee is concerned that too strong
an emphasis on translational research without a basic understanding of theunderlying biology will not be productive. The committee advises that BSI should
continue to emphasize fundamental mechanisms of brain function, and to use anunderstanding of such mechanisms for insight into diseases. Thus, thecommittee warns against trying to make progress in translational researchwithout a fundamental understanding of the underlying biology, an understandinglargely based on animal studies.
8. In the interactions with the PIs of BSI, the committee perceived a high degree of
insecurity about the future of BSI. For BSI to fully and further develop its

potential, it is essential that the RIKEN leadership formulate, if possible, a publicplan for the institute that provides a firm perspective for all stakeholders.
Terms of Reference 2
1. Leadership
The BSI is in transition and this is an opportunity to comprehensively re-evaluate its
scientific mission.
The future director of BSI should be an outstanding brain scientist with a highinternational reputation. She or he should have wide knowledge and perspective aboutbrain science and its future applications and should be a strong leader to motivate themembers of BSI to understand human brain functions with multidisciplinary collaborative
efforts. Brain Science has enormous impact on not only medical sciences but also
engineering, physics, psychology, linguistics, education and sociology.
The director should recruit the best researchers from the core neuroscience fields, i.e.,
molecular and cellular, systems and theoretical neuroscience, and the neuroscience ofdiseases, and provide them with sufficient freedom and research resources to produce
innovative results.
The new director also should encourage PIs to translate their findings into thediagnostics and therapeutics of brain disorders as well as non-disease related various
fields of human activities that meet the needs of general society. For this purpose, thedirector should make the institute open to various types of collaborations with othercenters of RIKEN, universities and industries worldwide.
2. Areas of focus (subthemes) within the centers field of research.
It is important for BSI to continue to represent the most exciting areas of modern
neuroscience to fulfill its function as a neuroscience hub for Japan, and to maintain acritical mass of researchers in each of these areas.
1. Synaptic and cellular neurobiology (including development) 8 labs
2. Functional circuits and networks (including learning and memory) – 6 labs
3. Sensory and behavioral systems neuroscience – 6 labs
4. Theoretical neuroscience – 5 labs
5. Neurotechnology – 5 labs
6. Diseases and translation research – 5 labs
7. Human neuroscience – 5 labs
The human neuroscience area deserves special mention. BSI already has two
excellent labs studying human development and language. The time is ripe to expand
this sub-theme because of new experimental approaches to studying humans andbridging with animal models. Relevant research areas include:

1) Wearable robotics, sensory substitution & neural prosthetics specifically as a tool forthe basic research on neural plasticity.
2) Developmental human neurobiology, including sensory-motor development in thehuman embryo and human brain organoids, with an emphasis on normal development.
3) Computational and mathematical theories of embodied intelligence.
4) Neuroinformatics and methods for the collection and analysis of big data.
This is also an area that has the possibilities for cross disciplinary integration with AI
research.
3. Integration of research between Centers.
BSI is in a unique position to develop synergies between its laboratories and those ofother Riken Institutes. The reason is that over the past decades Neuroscience hascome to encompass virtually the whole range of disciplines of the natural sciences andnow extends even into domains classically covered by the humanities. The
subdiscipline of cognitive neuroscience offers naturalistic explanations of mental
functions, some of which are specific for human subjects and have previously been the
exclusive domain of Psychology, Linguistics, Sociology and the Philosophy of the Mind.
It is because of this comprehensive coverage of scientific disciplines, - a necessary
prerequisite for research of normal and disturbed brain functions – that Neurosciencehas become an autonomous domain of research that can no longer be considered as a
subfield of biology, medicine or psychology. The BSI fulfils in an ideal way therequirements for the concentration on a singular campus of subdisciplines ranging fromthe analysis of molecular processes all the way up to investigations of mental
phenomena.
Obvious opportunities are collaborations between the BSI and other RIKEN institutes forthe development of novel tools of analysis in the domains of molecular biology, genetics
and diagnostics of brain diseases. A particularly fruitful collaboration is expected to takeplace in the domain of artificial intelligence, in the design of self-organizing autonomous
robotic systems and in the development of advanced mathematical tools for the analysis
of complex systems with nonlinear dynamics.
The Scientific Advisory Board unanimously agrees that such collaborations cannot be
imposed by top down measures or administrative mergers of institutes. Cooperation can
only emerge from the initiative of individual researchers sharing common scientificinterests and visions, as documented already by the numerous international
collaborations in which BSI scientists are engaged. However, incentives should begiven to facilitate such synergies. This can be accomplished by organizing joint
symposia in order to raise awareness of available opportunities and by setting aside a
special budget to provide seed money for cooperative projects. Scientists of different
Institutes of RIKEN should have the opportunity to apply for such seed money on acompetitive basis in order to be able to start a cooperative research project.

Terms of Reference 3
Pioneer a research management model for maximizing research and development results
Evaluation. From its inception in 1997, RIKEN BSI has been on the cutting edge of developing
new research management models in Japan for maximizing research and development results.
Most importantly, BSI has given young team leaders (i.e. faculty equivalents) unprecedented
freedom pursue their most ambitious research ideas, eliminating hierarchical obstructions that
discourage creativity. BSI has successfully attracted a significant cohort of foreign scientists asteam leaders, who bring new ideas, techniques, and experimental approaches to the entire
RIKEN community. Under the leadership of Director Tonegawa, BSI has given highest priority toscientific excellence in its hiring and promotion decisions. Standards are very high, and juniorTeam Leaders have had confidence that their performance will be judged fairly by outstanding
peer researchers who are experts in the field. The high standards ensure regular faculty
turnover and a fresh flow of new ideas and techniques into BSI. The confidence of the juniorTeam Leaders in the fairness of the process has been shaken recently with the announcementthat BSI procedures for evaluation and promotion will be abandoned in favor of new RIKENwide committees whose standards and criteria are as yet unclear. This uncertainty is harmful
to the morale of junior Team Leaders and must be addressed as soon as possible (seerecommendation below).
The current governance structure of BSI is healthy, with input being received and seriously
considered at multiple levels from the BSI Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, the PI
Assembly and the Academic Council. From our interactions with multiple faculty over our twoday visit, we conclude that faculty of all levels feel that their views are heard and that they havea strong stake in BSI governance. This creates a sense of ownership among the faculty that isvital to maximizing research and development productivity.
External research funds have also been a source of remarkable success. In FY2015 BSI partneredwith 26 companies and received a total of 632 million yen. This resource is well-poised tocontinue to grow, and should be encouraged and fostered.
Recommendations. In a period of declining funding, BSI leadership has performed exceptionallywell in maintaining core programs and laboratory support while cutting expenses where
possible. The cuts have been draconian, and we are impressed by the loyalty of the faculty andtheir continued commitment to BSI during a very difficult time. This sense of identity andcommitment to BSI among the faculty is a precious asset in maintaining BSI productivity andmorale.
• BSI leadership is to be commended in creating this culture; it speaks eloquently for the
structure that has been put in place, and should be preserved and encouraged by the
RIKEN administration.

•We strongly urge RIKEN to clearly articulate the new procedures for evaluation andpromotion of faculty, and also we urge that these procedures be based on scientificexcellence as judged by competent peer scientists.

Lead the world in pre-eminent research and development achieved through scientificexcellence.
Evaluation. The BSI faculty has produced major new discoveries that transcend existing fields ofresearch. Director Tonegawa’s research on the circuit level mechanisms of memory has been
particularly elegant. The ability to implant memories artificially into the mouse brain and havethe animal act on those memories is an acid test of our understanding of the neuralmechanisms underlying memory. Dr. Tonegawa’s fusion of molecular, circuit, and behavioral
techniques transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. Dr. Miyawaki’s laboratory has
developed important new molecular tools including fluorescent proteins that are fused tofunctional proteins to trace intracellular signaling pathways. Dr. Miyawaki’s new tissue clearing
technique, Scale, has been applied to the rodent brain during the past year as originallyintended, but strikingly, has also been applied productively to multiple tissues including heart,
lung, GI system, lymph nodes and animal embryos. This is a salient example of tool
development facilitating research in totally unanticipated ways. The Brain/MINDS project,hosted and spear-headed by BSI, is an important project to develop transgenic primate models(using the common marmoset) for the study of human disease, bringing the power of genetic
tools developed in the mouse to primate neurobiology. An important first stage of this effort ismapping gene expression patterns across the entire marmoset brain and comparing thesepatterns to those measured in mouse at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. The Brain/MINDS
project has already discovered substantial differences in expression patterns of certain genes
between primate and rodent brains in addition to many patterns common to the two species.
This project transcends fields by providing a unique resource that will support multiple
unforeseen investigations far into the future.
Recommendations. Without a doubt, RIKEN BSI is one of the premier neuroscience research
institutions in the world. BSI has an enviable balance of experienced senior Team Leaders withestablished international reputations and talented junior Team Leaders who are brimming withnew ideas for advancing all areas of neuroscience from molecular disease mechanisms, tohigher primate and human cognition, to technological innovation that will enablefundamentally new types of experiments to be performed in the future.
• This critical base of human talent is BSI’s most precious resource and must be
protected at all cost.
Hub of science and technology innovation
Evaluation. The advisory council accepted Director Tonegawa’s description of the strong steps
taken by RIKEN BSI to drive creation of a hub for neuroscience-focused science and technology

innovation. Particularly striking examples included numerous interactions with industrial
partners such as Olympus, and within-RIKEN/cross-center interactions: Prof. Miyawaki
interacting with the RAP center for advanced photonics, Prof. Tonegawa collaborating with the
BRC Bioresource Center in circuit genetics, Profs Saido and Kato working with the RIKEN –omics
CLST, and Prof. Tanaka’s use of the K-ray cyclotron at the RIKEN Spring-8 Center. Director
Tonegawa also highlighted areas of expected further growth in this direction, including with the
CAII Center for Advanced Integrative Intelligence Research, and neural circuit simulation in the
AICS (Advanced Institute for Computational Science). Finally of course we note the strong
interactions, including via Prof. Miyawaki, with the exciting national Brain/MINDS effort.
Recommendations. While we find these efforts to be exciting and potentially transformative,
the council did have a recommendation for driving further hub-like integration of BSI within
RIKEN. While some of the more senior PIs (Miyawaki, Tonegawa, Tanaka) as noted above were
engaged in these cross-Center interactions, many of the younger PIs were not engaged in such
efforts, or were unaware of mechanisms that could facilitate interaction.
•

A specific recommendation for new policy is initiation of a small seed-grant programfor pilot studies that would require involvement of at least two PI from at least two
different centers.

The impact of such cross-cutting programs has been highly successful at other institutions in theUS, and often leads to initiation of novel conversations and collaborations that simply would
not have otherwise happened, often between young PIs for whom the impact would be biggest
and for whom the small seed grants are most motivating. Typical magnitude of such programs
need not be greater that the salary for a postdoctoral fellow for two years along with somediscretionary money for basic supplies. It is important in such programs to explicitly state thatthese are for out-of-the-box ideas that would not be competitive for external funding, and may
be high-risk at the level of >2/3 expected to fail, but which have the potential for attraction ofmajor external funding if successful. Such programs can be highly cost-effective in the sense ofpaying for themselves many times over while at the same time serving the central goal ofdriving interactions across the institute from the hub-like BSI center. Neuroscience is now
playing such a hub-like role at major institutions around the world due to its inherently
interdisciplinary nature.
We offer a second specific recommendation regarding the extension of hub-like properties touniversities in Japan:•

Joint faculty appointments with universities could have the dual effect of providing
some budgetary relief to RIKEN while at the same time extending the impact of
RIKEN’s work on the broader academic community in Japan, and provide an infusionof ideas and tools that could help maintain “critical mass” at RIKEN even in a time ofdownsizing.

Focal point for global brain circulation
Evaluation. The advisory council evaluated Director Tonegawa’s description of the successful
steps taken by RIKEN BSI to improve recruiting methods and the outcome of migrations fromRIKEN to the international community. We took note of the summary of BSI researchers thathave been appointed as professors at major institutions both at Japan (18, including 10 at the
University of Tokyo and Kyoto University) and around the world (2 at Harvard, 1 at Stanford).
Internationalization efforts have included global recruitment trips by Charles Yokoyama, launchof a blog, and the BSI-international program associate (IPA) process for recruitment ofinternational graduate students. We also noted with approval the upgraded on-site daycare
facility “RIKEN kids”.
Recommendations. We noted and agreed with Director Tonegawa’s comment that the male tofemale ratio at RIKEN needs to improve (261:195), especially among PIs (33:5). This is not out ofstep with other major non-university Japanese research institutions such as OIST (51:8 amongPIs) but nevertheless needs to improve.
•

We recommend evaluation of satisfaction among the female PIs and postdocs,
particularly with regard to issues that may be addressed soon and which may help
with international recruitment of both men and women (daycare placement support,
lactation rooms, etc). We suggest that the recruitment efforts carried out forinternational faculty be explicitly modified with particular attention to recruiting
talented young women.

We also note that the current uncertainty with regard to the tenure-track (or not) nature of theappointments is likely to have an enormously negative impact on recruitment of internationalPIs, who will be expecting and accustomed to bona fide tenure-track positions, and the best ofthese potential recruits will find the lack or instability of such positions to be a deal-breaker.
•

Steps must be taken to minimize damage already done by the current uncertainty,
which could have effects derailing international recruitment not just at RIKEN for thepresent time, but at RIKEN for many years to come, and even reverberating acrossJapan.

Foster and train world class leaders in scientific research; provide researchers and engineers
in industry and academia with opportunities for research and training to improve their skills
Evaluation. The advisory council were impressed by Director Tonegawa’s description of thestrong steps taken by RIKEN BSI to address the previous BSAC recommendations in this regard.
We noted not only the excellence of the BSI laboratories and the number and quality of thepapers carried out by trainees (which in many ways is the best evidence for fostering of worldclass researchers), but we noted other efforts that will have the effect of broadening thetraining of young BSI scientists. These efforts include the Harvard-RIKEN BSI program (8students/year), the UCSF Exchange program with bidirectional visits, and the Waseda
Internship Program targeting 5-6 3rd year undergraduate students/year. We also noted the BSI
collaborative Centers with industry, including the RIKEN-BSI Olympus Collaboration Center(BOCC), the RIKEN BSI-Toyota Collaboration Center (BTCC), the RIKEN BSI Takeda Collaboration
Center (BTaC) and the RIKEN-BSI Kao Collaboration center (BKCC).
Recommendations. We advise continuation of this rich and diverse set of programs forfostering young scientists who will have a broad impact on the world, and link industry andacademia. As noted above:•

Joint appointments with universities could have the dual effect of providing budgetary
support while at the same time broadening impact of RIKEN’s work on the academic
community in Japan, provide bidirectional infusion of ideas and tools, and enrich thetraining of the next generation.

Terms of Reference 4.
BSI already has many important collaborations with other RIKEN Institutes/Centers, which
include:
•
•
•
•
•
•

Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki collaborating with RAP (RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics) for
new cellular imaging,
Dr. Susumu Tonegawa collaborating with BRC (BioResource Center) for circuit genetics
research
Dr. Takaomi Saido and Tadafumi Kato collaborating with CLST (Center for Life Science
Technologies) in omics analysis
Dr. Motomasa Tanaka collaborating with RCS (RIKEN Spring-8 Center) for structural
analysis of amyloid beta
Collaboration projects with “Program for Drug Discovery and Medical Technology
Platform” in RIKEN for drug screening.
BSI Participating in a group collaboration with other Institutes/Centers (IMS, CDB, BRC,
QBic, CSRS and CLST).

There is also active collaboration with outside industries, which include;• Collaboration projects with companies (TOYOTA and Olympus) for application ofneuroscience in industry and also for facilitating personnel exchange.
• Collaboration projects with pharmaceutical companies (Takeda Pharmaceuticals andAstellas Pharma) for drug screening project.
In our experience, cross-disciplinary collaborations are most effective if the ideas are originatedfrom investigators. RIKEN can consider establishing new funding scheme to solicit collaborative
grant applications on a competitive basis. In order to facilitate collaboration with other RIKEN
Institutes/Centers, BSI must retain its identity with a certain critical mass and strongfoundation. PIs should be encouraged to submit proposals that require cross-disciplinary
collaborations.