Arrangements have been made to accept foreign scholars as visiting scholars. It is anticipated that an additional Chinese scientist and a Korean scientist will join NII as visiting scholars in the near future. This report reflected concern that IT research at Japanese universities was not sufficiently advanced. Responding to these recommendations, Monbusho established a Preparation Committee for the Establishment of an Institute of Informatics in April 1999. Science Information Network.
Networks are among the most important infrastructure elements for information and communication.
In order to promote the flow and exchange of information among researchers in universities and other academic research institutions in Japna, NII operates the Science Information Network thereby interconnecting LANs, WANS and other networking systems to which researchers terminals are connected. This network enables NII to provide the NII Information Retrieval Service and the Electronic Mail Services for academic researches in Japan. Currently, NII's Science Information Network connects over 700 universities and academic institutions in Japan. The Science Information Exchange Project with China was started in 1998 with the aim of promoting the dissemination of academic information between Japan and China, and the Beijing Center for Japanese studies established to provide assistance with computerization. As of June 1999, over 13,000 items of information had been recorded.