62. International Research Promotion Office

Masako Kimura, Etsuko Ito Hiroko Tanaka, and Kazunobu Fujitaka

Keywords: international collaboration, space radiation, research promotion

When the former Third Research Group made a fresh start as the International Space Radiation La boratory in April 1999, the International Research Promotion Office was established as a new function to arrange and promote research collaboration on a worldwide basis in order to advance space medicine The year 1999 is particularly marked by the fact that post-doctoral fellows have joined us for the first time, which significantly contributed to the revitalization of our laboratory. Also, we made efforts throughout the year to increase opportunities to work in collaboration by inviting many researchers from abroad and sending our researchers out to par ticipate in workshops, conferences and experiments abroad as well as inside the country. We held an international workshop in February 2000, where lead ing researchers gathered from the US, Canada, Germany, Italy, Russia, China and IAEA to discuss research strategies in supporting manned space missions and the International Space Station (ISS). It is worth noting that this workshop was the first in the world in terms of international organizations officially joining discussions on space medicine, and served as a forum for an active exchange of opinions on future research collaboration, contributing to the creation of a better international network in this field.