Promotion Program for Young Scientists
As the Promotion Program for Young Scientists, we funded research based on proposal submissions.
This program is aimed at a deeper insight into the most important issues of the 21st century in fields such as
environmental, materials, energy, life, and information sciences from an "isotopes" standpoint, and train
young researchers that can work to solve these problems. The program is targeted at graduate students and
young researchers, and is a proposal-based research funding system that started in the first year. The goal of
this program is to make young researchers actively participate in interdisciplinary and cutting-edge research
activities, and also to maintain an environment where researchers can concentrate on research such as
providing opportunities for international experience. There is also an important educational aspect of
making the objectives clear in daily research, and explaining the research to researchers in other fields and
obtaining their understanding.
Proposals are accepted in the five fields comprising the isotope science virtual laboratory, namely (1) Isotope Separation/production,
(2) Isotope measurement, (3) Isotope Materials,
(4) Environmental/life science, and (5) Cultural information.
Participants are to apply for research funds based on the objective,
plans, and expected results of the project. Distribution of funds is determined based on an evaluation of the
written proposals.
One important objective of this Program was to ask for a wide variety of isotope-related research, and
grow sprouting research, as shown in Table 1. Although there was some difference on evaluation, we tried
to accept, as much as possible, a diversity of research projects, and encouraged presentations at various
research meetings and symposiums. The resulting information exchange and collaboration led to the
formation of new research groups by young researchers (units for integrated research by young researchers)
in fiscal year 2006. In this regard, the significance of this Program is very large, and is highly evaluated by
reviewers. Submitting research proposals is a significant opportunity for young researchers and graduate
students to objectively think about their research and think about of research plans. Graduate students are
using this funding to make presentations at international conferences, making them more active in their
participation in their research. This proves that this system is highly contributing to the training of
researchers.
Table1 Accepted proposals by research field
| Fiscal year |
(1)
Separation/
production |
(2)
Measurement
|
(3)
Materials
|
(4)
Environmental/
life science |
(5)
Cultural
information |
Total |
| 2003 |
4 |
7 |
7 |
6 |
0 |
24 |
| 2004 |
5 |
7 |
9 |
6 |
1 |
28 |
| 2005 |
4 |
6 |
7 |
4 |
1 |
22 |
| 2006 |
5 |
9 |
2 |
5 |
1 |
22 |
| Total |
18 |
29 |
25 |
21 |
3 |
96 |
|
