Outline

History

Fukuma laboratory was founded as Takeshi Fukuma started his associated professor position at Frontier Science Organization in Kanazawa University as the first research staff appointed with tenure track system on 1st May, 2007. Fukuma laboratory is affiliated to Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University as well as to Frontier Science Organization. Therefore, Fukuma laboratory widely accepts graduate students from the devision of Mathematical and Physical Science for their education and research activities.

Official Name

Fukuma Laboratory, Nano Life Science Institute, Kanazawa University

Nanoscale Molecular Science, Experimental Physics, Devision of Mathematical and Physical Science, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University

Location

Room No.108 Nano Life Science Institute, Kanazawa University

Frontier Science Organization

Friontier Science Organization (FSO) was founded on 1st April, 2007 for developping excellent and distinctive research programs in Kanazawa University into worldwide centers of the individual research area. FSO selects limited number of competitive and characteristic research projects with prominent potential from a number of ongoing projects in Kanazawa Univerisity. FSO provides comprehensive and intensive supports of research budgets, human resources and work area to the selected "FSO Research Projects".Among the most remarkable is the innovated recruiting system called "tenure track system". FSO recruits brilliant young researchers with world-class achievements in the field of each FSO Research Project to reinforce the productivity and research level of the project team as well as to secure the progress in the next generation.

Prof. Fukuma has been a member of an FSO Research Project "Combination of Advanced AFM Technologies and its Applications to Nanobiology". In the project, he has been working on the instrumentations of liquid-environment AFM with a world highest resolution for investigating a biological phenomena at a single molecular level.

Tenure Track System in Kanazawa University

Tenure track (TT) system is generally an appointment system in which a researcher is appointed with a fixed-term contract and given an opportunity to be reviewed at the end of the contract duration for a promotion to a tenured position. The system had been rarely seen in Japan until 2006 when Japanese goverment started to distribute dedicated budgets for starting up the system to the selected universities.The details of the contract for the TT positions vary depending on the university yet are mostly a five year contract as an assistant professor or a lecturer with a promotion path to the tenured associate professor position.

Kanazawa University started its TT system at the same time as FSO was founded in April, 2007. This is for the reinforcement of human resources in the FSO Research Projects as well as for training promising young researchers as a future group leader of the developed research projects. In order to achieve this goal, FSO recruits a very limited number of associate professors with a five year contract and let them run their own research groups independently. After the five years, the TT researcher is reviewed for the promotion to a tenured professor position, which marks the difference from the other TT systems with a career path to an associate professor position. This is for securing more talented young researchers able to carry out world top level research with a short starting-up time.

Prof. Fukuma was appointed on 1st May, 2007 as the first TT associate professor in Kanazawa University after a competitive review process. Prof. Fukuma has been expected to contribute to the development of FSO and TT system as the first TT researcher in Kanazawa University as well as to achieve excellent research results.