RIKEN CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE SCIENCE

Advisory Council Report 2016

Center for Sustainable Resource Science Advisory Council
August 8‐10, 2016

RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Advisory Council Report 2016

The second RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) Advisory Council meeting was heldfrom August 8‐10, 2016 on the RIKEN Yokohama Campus. The 2016 Advisory Council report is basedon the comprehensive report of CSRS current activities and future goals (White Paper) provided by
Director Dr. Kazuo Shinozaki and on short presentations of core projects and Integrated Research
Platforms provided by the Project Directors. The report summarizes the evaluation andrecommendations of the CSRS Advisory Council and addresses the CSRS Directors report and futureplans as well as the Terms of Reference by President Dr. Hiroshi Matsumoto and Director Dr. Kazuo
Shinozaki.

Members of the RIKEN CSRS Advisory Council present at the 2016 meeting
Dr. Wilhelm Gruissem
ETH Zurich, Switzerland(Chair, Plant Biotechnology)

Dr. Hirokazu Arimoto
Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University(Chemical Biology)

Dr. Dirk Inzé
VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University(Plant Science)

Dr. Minoru Isobe
Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University(Chemical Biology)

Dr. Kenichiro Itami(Chemistry)
Director, WPI Institute of Transformative Bio‐Molecules, Nagoya University
Dr. Peter Kündig
Professor Emeritus, University of Geneva, Switzerland(Chemistry)

Dr. Naoko Nishizawa(Plant Science)
Research Institute for Bioresources and Biotechnology, Ishikawa Prefectural University
Dr. Kyoko Nozaki(Chemistry)
Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, The University of Tokyo
Dr. Ben Shen
(Chemical Biology)
Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, Florida, USA

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RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Advisory Council Report 2016

Executive Summary
Since the review in 2014 the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) has
demonstrated the feasibility of merging plant science, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology intoa powerful and visionary institute with strong potential of international leadership in innovativeinterdisciplinary research and novel synergistic approaches. Based on its scientific strength andfrontier technologies, CSRS is in an excellent position to address key societal challenges. Fullrealization of the potential requires further strategic planning as well as new resources forstrengthening catalytic chemistry and chemical biology to support increasing synergistic interactions.
CSRS is a RIKEN flagship and hub for technology and innovation with enormous potential and abright future. But as already recommended in the last report, CSRS scientists must now fill their
Future Plan starting in 2018 with medium‐ and long‐term strategies as well as vision and aspiration.
They are encouraged to develop a plan that embraces entrepreneurship and creates the basis fortruly disruptive and game‐changing research and technologies.

General Comments and Recommendations
CSRS was started in 2013 by merging RIKEN plant scientists from the Plant Science Center located on
the Yokohama campus with chemists and chemical biologists from the Advanced Science Institutelocated on the Wako campus. In 2015 CSRS also integrated the Biomass Engineering Program andDrug Discovery Platform of the former Research Cluster for Innovation. This has created a uniquesynergistic center with nearly 40 research groups working at the interface of plant biology, catalytic
chemistry and chemical biology to develop novel scientific approaches. They represent an enormous
potential of global leadership in solving key societal problems through innovative research anddevelopment towards the sustainable use and production of resources. The 2016 report of theAdvisory Council is therefore reflecting on the 2014 report when CSRS was first evaluated andfurther emphasizes the recommendations that were made at that time. Since then CSRS has
demonstrated the feasibility and potential of merging different disciplines to address emerging
global challenges. This accomplishment should serve as an example of inspiring interdisciplinary
research also in other RIKEN institutes. There is no doubt that CSRS is clearly one of the RIKEN
flagship centers. Its mission and aspiration are central to RIKEN’s mission of delivering innovation to
Japan and the world.
CSRS scientists are currently located on the RIKEN Wako and Yokohama campuses. For historicalreasons, Wako group leaders have permanent contracts while most Yokohama group and teamleaders have 5‐year renewable contracts with a maximum contract length of 10 years, after which
they have to find employment elsewhere. This discrepancy in job security is causing tension among
the CSRS scientists, especially considering the generally scarce employment opportunities in Japan’s
universities and commercial sectors for even excellent and productive scientists. Moreover,scientists with limited term contracts are less likely to engage in high‐risk but also high‐reward
projects and rather pursue research that leads to publications quickly to strengthen their position in
a competitive employment environment. Although RIKEN is currently changing its employment
system to increase the number of long‐term employment opportunities, it is unlikely that allscientists with 5‐year contracts can be moved to permanent positions, nor is this desirable. RIKEN
and CSRS should have an employment system that can offer attractive long‐term positions to top
world‐class scientists while maintaining the flexibility to respond to changing societal needs andemerging new and promising scientific fields. This requires an open competitive international
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recruitment process and intensive mentorship of RIKEN’s young scientists to prepare them forindependent academic or industrial careers and to help them identify employment opportunities
outside of RIKEN. CSRS is making efforts in placing scientists in leading positions also in overseas
institutions and universities, such as the Max‐Planck‐Institution in Germany and the University ofToronto. The Advisory Council strongly encourages CSRS to continue and even step up these efforts.
But effective leadership and management of the CSRS program sometimes also requires difficult
decisions to phase out less productive scientists and projects that are no longer aligned with the
CSRS mission, goals and strategic re‐investments to strengthen and expand areas of criticalimportance to further growth.
Since the 2014 review CSRS has made good progress in building novel programs and interdisciplinary
research projects that take advantage of the expertise available in the center to transform Japan intoa green and sustainable society that is based on low carbon emission, smart energy management,
and resource‐efficient crop production for food and feed. These efforts are currently focused on
new approaches for carbon utilization (led by Dr. Kazuki Saito), nitrogen utilization (led by Dr. Ken
Shirasu), metal element utilization (led by Dr. Zhaomin Hou) and an integrated research platform forsustainable resource development (led by Dr. Hiroyuki Osada and Dr. Kazuki Saito). The Biomass
Engineering Program (led by Dr. Minami Matsui), the Drug Discovery Platforms (led by Dr. Minoru
Yoshida and Dr. Hiroyuki Osada), and the Technology Platform (led by Dr. Hiroyuki Osada) continue
as Divisions in CSRS with their own budgets. Within these programs CSRS is making strong progressin merging plant science, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology into a synergistic center. RIKENCSRS together with the World Premier Institute of Transformative Bio‐Molecules (ITbM) at Nagoya
University represent a unique and powerful concentration of excellent scientists in Japan working at
the frontier of small molecule discovery and applications to plants and human health. CSRS musttake advantage of this unique strength and lead the world in developing transformative anddisruptive technologies that will provide sustainable solutions for national and global societal needs.
The Advisory Council applauds the continued excellence of CSRS research and efforts to establish
interdisciplinary projects across the core CSRS scientific fields. Results from several CSRS projects
are receiving national and international attention, such as the splitting of atmospheric nitrogen atroom temperature or the utilization of manganese oxides for efficient water splitting at neutral pH.
These breakthroughs will have significant implications for the environmentally costly production offertilizers and new types of CO2‐neutral fuels. Similarly, the development of novel copper‐catalyzed
CO2 fixation chemistry by CSRS scientists for highly selective multicomponent coupling to novel cyclic
lithium borocarbonate ion pair compounds could have strong potential for application as high‐performance electrolytes for lithium‐ion batteries. Plant scientists have identified high‐affinity
transporters for efficient uptake of nitrogen and continue to make progress on developing drought‐
tolerant crops. Similarly, the recent discovery of small molecules that can either increase or inhibit
plant immunity have enormous potential for agriculture and facilitating our understanding how
plants defend themselves against pathogens and chewing insects that cause enormous damage tocrops. Thus, CSRS discoveries will help to reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture by
reducing irrigation as well as fertilizer and pesticide applications. Scientists in the CSRS Biomass
Engineering Division have developed technology for biopolymer production that is already used incommercial production by Kaneka Corporation. They are also engineering biosynthetic pathways forincreased metabolic efficiency, which has significant potential for large‐scale production of rubber,for example. CSRS chemists are driving the fields of new functional polymers as well as nanoparticle
and earth abundant metal catalysts that have potential for opening new markets, in drug
development or for large‐scale industrial production processes. Drug development will also profit
from new efficient methods developed for site selective trifluoromethyl group introduction into
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molecular scaffolds. Together, these and other accomplishments show the continued excellence andhigh output of CSRS core research programs as well as first promising results from interdisciplinary
research. RIKEN plant biology, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology continue to maintain theirhigh rankings in Japan and internationally, as exemplified by publications in top journals, numerous
awards, and the fact that in 2015 eight of the 15 highly cited RIKEN scientists were in CSRS.
The Advisory Council finds that since the 2014 report CSRS has made good progress in integrating
plant science, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology while maintaining core strength and highscientific output. However, the integration is not yet complete and requires further strategicplanning and prioritization of targeted investments to fully realize the interdisciplinary researchpotential. For example, there is emerging evidence of synergistic research efforts between thebiomass engineering project, drug discovery and technology platforms. But there is still a huge andunexploited potential for breaking open new fields. Currently plant scientists are located on the
Yokohama campus while most chemists and chemical biologists are on the Wako campus. While
RIKEN has made a new building available on the Wako campus to facilitate interdisciplinary research,
this is only a stop‐gap solution. Ideally, all CSRS research groups should be located in the samebuilding, or at least on the same campus. This requires infrastructure planning and considerable
new investments. The Advisory Council understands and appreciates that this might be difficult torealize at present. In the short term, CSRS and the RIKEN administration should therefore engage infurther strategic planning to maximize synergistic interactions among scientists by providing
significant financial incentives for collaborative interdisciplinary research projects. This should
include strong incentives for research groups to relocate between the Wako and Yokohama
campuses in order to achieve strategic mixing between the different disciplines. Considering that he
CSRS budget has been essentially flat for the last three years and that the Biomass Engineering, Drug
Discovery and Technology Platform Divisions maintain their own separate budgets, facilitatinginterdisciplinary research will require prioritization of current research projects and strategicplanning, changes in budget allocations, and additional new resources from the RIKEN
administration. In addition, CSRS should implement a strong mentorship and co‐supervision
program to train young researchers in interdisciplinary research.
As explained in the 2014 report, CSRS has a great potential of becoming a hub for science andtechnology innovation in the world. The integration efforts have already shown good progress indelivering solutions to societal needs. But the CSRS leadership must now engage in a more effective
program development and strategic planning that includes the participation of all research groupand team leaders. Together they must establish clear and transparent criteria for prioritization ofresearch projects. The Advisory Council agrees that the CSRS Future Plan for 2018‐2023 is a goodstarting point for strategic planning but recognizes several areas requiring critical attention.
The CSRS Strategic Plan should have a clear vision for the long term and a convincing forward
strategy that explains its mission as well as expected milestones and deliverables that scientists wish
to achieve in the next 5‐10 years. The CSRS leadership should formulate 2‐3 flagship projects withhigh visibility and societal impact. Catalytic chemistry and chemical biology must have central andintegrative roles in CSRS to drive the understanding of biological processes and to develop new
enabling technologies, efficient catalytic processes, and bio‐factories with low burden on
environment and society. Chemists and chemical biologists already provide critical support forinterrogation of biological problems, but rather than a service this must become truly synergistic andinterdisciplinary research co‐operations with the plant scientists. To meet the increasing demand ofchemical expertise requires an expansion of personnel and resources in catalytic chemistry and

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chemical biology, including the hiring of new group leaders that work at the interface of chemistry
and biology.
As a new interdisciplinary center, CSRS is in a strong position for interactions with other RIKEN
Centers, such as the Biological Resource Center (BRC), Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC) and theCenter for Advanced Integrated Intelligence Research (CAII), but also with the technology platforms
in the Center for Life Science Technologies (CLST) and with the Center for Integrative Medical
Sciences for food‐ and disease‐related research. The Strategic Plan should explain how researchcollaborations with these RIKEN Centers contribute to the CSRS mission.
Together, CSRS needs to better highlight current strength and discoveries, especially in framing
promising future research areas with high impact for society such as:
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Healthy and stress‐tolerant high‐yielding crops that can cope with climate change
Fertilizer‐ and water‐efficient crop plants to reduce the ecological footprint of agriculture
Environmentally friendly catalytic oxidation‐, carbon dioxide‐ and atmospheric nitrogen‐chemistries
Novel genome engineering technologies for molecular breeding of novel traits
Creative pathway engineering for biological starting material to reduce the reliance on fossil
fuels
Using green biomass for new bio‐based polymers that save resources of the earth
Utilization of natural product libraries to understand plant (and animal) biological processes
as well as for discovery of new antibiotics and other compounds for human health

The CSRS strategy plan should also provide an international perspective of the Center’s direction,
explain how future plans are aligned with RIKEN and government strategies, explain howtranslational research will be facilitated, and provide convincing plans for technology transfer(national and international, including concepts for start‐up companies), as well as communicationand outreach efforts. The 2016 White Paper lists numerous national and international as well asinter‐ministry research collaborations. These collaborations are useful in creating synergies andperhaps also in inspiring innovation at the government levels. However, the Advisory Council
recommends that collaborations should be prioritized to fit the CSRS mission and effectively
contribute to strategic outputs. CSRS takes advantage of the RIKEN Cluster for Industry Partnership
through RIKEN’s Business Development and Promotion offices. To date, these efforts have resulted
in translational collaborations and larger‐scale industrial application of CSRS technology. However,the RIKEN and CSRS leaderships should also foster entrepreneurship and encourage especially young
scientists to pursue their inventions in start‐up companies that if successful could become
interesting to industry. This requires risk‐taking, but with strong mentorship and RIKEN support
more scientists might be willing to start their own companies. To promote interactions with industry,
CSRS should consider a program for industry researchers to spend time at RIKEN for training in new
cutting‐edge technologies that are being developed by CSRS scientists.
In summary, the CSRS Advisory Council remains enthusiastic in supporting RIKEN and CSRS for theirvisionary approach of merging plant sciences, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology into a
synergistic center with great potential for innovative research and disruptive technology
development. CSRS has all the ingredients for success that with decisive leadership, effective
program management and appropriate financial support (including new resources to strengthenchemistry and chemical biology) will translate into important solutions for societal and global
challenges.

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Recommendations on Terms of Reference (President Dr. Hiroshi Matsumoto)
The Advisory Council reviewed the current accomplishments and future directions of CSRS withrespect to the terms of reference provided by RIKEN President Dr. Hiroshi Matsumoto and CSRS
Director Dr. Kazuo Shinozaki. Overall, CSRS current operations are strong and contribute to thecenter’s success. Future planning is forward looking but needs a longer‐term vision andprioritization of research projects and expected milestone achievements
TOR 1: CSRS research achievements, human resources, focus and future directions
Research in CSRS is excellent with high visibility and impact. Most of the research groups are wellrecognized nationally and internationally as leaders in their respective fields. CSRS is making strong
progress in merging three disciplines (plant science, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology) into a
synergistic center. Based on this synergy CSRS is expected to create novel scientific approaches.
While plant science is strongly positioned in CSRS, full integration and exploitation of synergies
requires strengthening of catalytic chemistry and chemical biology by increasing human and financial
resources. The current physical separation of plant science and chemistry/chemical biology on two
campuses is not conducive to close interdisciplinary research collaboration. If circumstances
currently do not permit consolidation of CSRS on one RIKEN campus, then efforts should be made to
mix research on both campuses. Considering the unique opportunities created by strengthening andexpanding interdisciplinary research, CSRS should make it its policy and mission to address criticalsocietal challenges. In this context CSRS should focus its research activities on crop improvement inface of climate change, development of new bio‐based materials that reduce the environmental
footprint, innovating energy‐efficient catalytic utilization of abundant atmospheric resources such as
CO2 and N2, and application of innovative catalytic chemistry and chemical biology to understandplant (and animal) processes.
TOR 2: Re‐evaluations of the centers in operation more than 10 years
Not applied to CSRSTOR 3: RIKEN Initiative for Scientific Excellence
CSRS clearly has achieved scientific excellence and must be considered one of RIKEN’s flagshipcenters. The mission of CSRS is fully aligned with the RIKEN mission Initiative for Scientific Excellenceby serving society through innovative research and international leadership in addressing global
challenges.
3.1

Research management model

CSRS is managed by the Director, three Deputy Directors, and five Group Directors and Division
Directors. The Director and Deputy Director form the core management team who decides on
strategic research directions with input from the Group and Division Directors. Research Group
Leaders, Research Team Leaders and Research Unit Leaders are regularly informed by the Director
about administrative decisions and planning. However, prioritization, management and strategic
future planning for maximizing research and development results could strongly benefit from a
broader involvement of the younger scientists who are the force responsible for excellent, high‐impact scientific achievements and international visibility of CSRS.
The CSRS budget is currently allocated to research groups by the Director. The Biomass Engineering,
Drug Discovery and Technology Platform Divisions maintain their own separate budget. There isopportunity to centralize the budget in CSRS and establish transparent criteria and strategic
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RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Advisory Council Report 2016priorities by which funds are allocated to core projects and individual research groups. CSRS should
provide attractive internal financial incentives for true interdisciplinary collaborations among theplant scientists, chemists and chemical biologists to facilitate their integration. These incentives
should be attractive enough to motivate a stronger mixing of scientists and research groups between
the Wako and Yokohama campuses. At the same time CSRS urgently needs additional RIKEN
resources for strengthening human resources in chemistry and chemical biology to effectively
support interdisciplinary research. CSRS scientist are highly successful in securing external researchfunds, which is especially impressive considering the limited availability of competitive funding andthe prevailing view in the research community that RIKEN scientists have enough internal support.
3.2

Leading the world in achieving new research and development results

There are many examples already that document pioneering research at CSRS, also indicated by animpressive number of publications in top journals, a strong patent portfolio, effective translational
research, and eight scientists who are among the most highly cited scientists in the world. CSRS is
now reporting first results from innovative interdisciplinary research collaborations that were
facilitated by integrating plant science, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology. Full realization of
the CSRS potential requires further longer‐term strategic planning, programmatic prioritization,strong synergistic interactions and new resources.
3.3

A hub for science and technology innovation

CSRS scientists have built an impressive number of national and international researchcollaborations, partly based on the cutting edge technology platforms that are important national
resources. Supported by the RIKEN Cluster for Industry Partnership, CSRS scientists have alsoestablished industry contacts that are now becoming translational collaborations and larger‐scaleindustrial applications of CSRS technology. Emerging inter‐ministry collaborations may also inspire
the government of Japan to develop new national research programs. Collectively, these efforts
have enormous potential and show that within a short time CSRS has become a hub for science andtechnology innovation. But they must now be prioritized and aligned with the CSRS mission longer‐term strategic planning to maximize impact and success. Fostering entrepreneurship among CSRS
scientists to continue development and translation of their research results in spin‐off companies
will further strengthen the hub function of CSRS.
Because of its interdisciplinary nature, CSRS should develop initiatives and build partnerships withother RIKEN Centers such as BRC, QBiC, CAII, CLST and the Center for Integrative Medical Sciences,to facilitate interdisciplinary research and disruptive technology development not only in CSRS but
across RIKEN institutes.
3.4

A focal point for global brain circulation

CSRS is making sincere efforts of recruiting the best national and international scientists, but thecurrent short‐term (5‐10 year) contracts and limited long‐term employment opportunities in RIKEN
restrict the pool of top scientists who are attracted to group or team leader positions, despite theworld‐leading research and infrastructure environments of RIKEN. Nevertheless, CSRS continues to
do well in hiring excellent young scientists who are highly motivated in building their careers. Nearly
half of the CSRS staff members are female, but the recruitment of female scientists into leading
positions remains a weak point that must be improved by the CSRS management. Similarly, theappointment of foreign group leaders and postdoctoral fellows continues to lag behind otherinstitutions around the world comparable in size and international visibility to RIKEN.

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CSRS continues to invest in research platforms and technologies to strengthen the state‐of‐the‐art
research environment. However, such investments must also be based on strategic planning andconsultation of all group and team leaders to assure that instruments and technologies support thebroadest possible user base, thereby maximizing research outputs.
3.5

Development of world‐class leaders in scientific research

Guidance, mentorship and a supportive research environment are key to building successful careersof young scientists. CSRS is doing well in this regard and most of the scientists with limited‐term
contracts find attractive positions in Japan or in international institutions and universities tocontinue their career. Nevertheless, CSRS should step up efforts of attracting excellent young
scientists through open competitive international recruitment processes. Management should
establish an effective mechanism of intensive mentorship of young scientists in CSRS to preparethem for independent academic or industrial careers and to help them identify employment
opportunities outside of RIKEN.
Considering its innovative interdisciplinary nature and strong technologies, CSRS should develop a
program for industry researchers in which they can be exposed and immersed in new cutting‐edge
technologies and methods that are being developed by CSRS scientists at the interface of plantscience, catalytic chemistry and chemical biology.
TOR 4: CSRS activities towards maximizing RIKEN’s achievements
CSRS is clearly one of the RIKEN flagship centers. Its mission and activities as well as current andfuture achievements are central to RIKEN’s mission of innovation for the society of Japan and theworld.

Recommendations on Requests from CSRS Director (Dr. Kazuo Shinozaki)
1.

CSRS status and operational improvement since the 2014 report

As explained in more detail in the General Comments and Recommendations, CSRS has made good
progress in integrating plant science, catalytic chemistry and chemistry while maintaining corestrength and high scientific output in the three disciplines. However, the integration is not yet
complete and requires further strategic planning and prioritization of targeted investments.
1.1

Status of core research and integrated research projects

There are many examples of exciting and high‐impact results from several CSRS core and integrated
research projects that are receiving national and international attention. Several are highlighted in
the 2016 report and can be found in the presentations of the Group Directors. The Advisory Council
remains enthusiastic about the excellence of CSRS research and efforts to establish interdisciplinary
projects across the core scientific fields.
1.2

Positioning of integrated biomass engineering project, technology platform area, and drug
discovery area

There is convincing evidence of emerging synergistic research efforts between the biomass
engineering project, technology platforms, and drug discovery area. But there also is still a huge
underexplored and underexploited potential for breaking open new fields. As explained in moredetail in the report, realization of this potential requires effective strategic planning and transparent
prioritization of research programs.
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1.3

International collaboration, collaboration with corporations or other research institutes,
and collaboration within the Center

CSRS is making strong efforts of building collaboration and has an impressive list of collaborative
research efforts. However, it is important to carefully evaluate and prioritize collaborations in orderto strengthen the mission of CSRS.
2.

Five‐year plan starting from 2018

The CSRS Future Plan for 2018‐2023 is a good starting point for further strategic planning. The CSRSManagement should include all Team Leaders and Unit Leaders in developing a visionary, innovative
and world‐leading research program to address societal challenges.

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