President

Message from the President

Shigeo Okabe

I am pleased to announce that I have been appointed President of the Japanese Society of Microscopy (JSM) at the 79th General Meeting of JSM (Matsue, Japan). I would like to offer my greetings on assuming this position.

Up to now, JSM has made significant contributions to the development of microscopy and its industrial applications with a history of seventy years. In recent years, JSM has become a society that embraces diverse interdisciplinary research, with the participation of researchers specializing not only in electron microscopy but also in optical microscopy. Progress in microscopy is very rapid, and microscopists in Japan need to revitalize their activities and disseminate high-impact research results to strengthen their international competitiveness. Over the past four years, diverse activities have been promoted by JSM under the leadership of Ex-President Prof. Ikuhara. The members of the Society have fully acknowledged these activities. In the future, while maintaining these activities, we will emphasize the following items and aim for further development of JSM with the cooperation of all members.

(1) Strengthening the research infrastructure of microscopy: introducing the latest research equipment and the availability of human resources are top priorities in all scientific research. Unfortunately, in the formulation of today’s research projects, the bottom-up voice is often equivocated, and priority is sometimes given to so-called ‘top-down’ projects. There is a need to make strong opinions as the coherent voice of the JSM members and to engage in productive discussions with the relevant government branches and organizations. We aim further to strengthen the efforts of JSM to promote the research infrastructure. It is also essential to establish appropriate cooperation with microscopy-related companies. JSM has played an important role as a forum for exchanging information and resources between academia and industry. We hope to maintain such traditions and incorporate new ideas.

(2) Promotion of international competitiveness: microscopy technology has made remarkable progress, and high-resolution, high-precision data acquisition combined with AI technology enables more sophisticated analysis. In this context, there is a need for JSM members to form close networks and engage in active interaction with both domestic and foreign researchers. As the restriction on activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic has almost been lifted, this is a unique timing to stimulate international research exchange through the initiative of JSM members. Developing academic networks will promote domestic and international academic collaboration and enhance our research capabilities.

(3) Fostering young microscopists and future researchers: the age structure of JSM members shows that increasing the number of young members is an urgent issue. Using the power of microscopic images to appeal to researchers in different fields, we will attempt to recruit young scientists, targeting scientific societies with high fractions of microscopists. In addition, to broaden the career prospects of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, we hope to activate interactions between JSM members across generations, especially between researchers in companies and graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. We also consider it essential to continue and develop the newly initiated project to nurture ‘future microscopists’ from elementary to high school students.

It goes without saying that to implement these activities, we need to have a solid financial foundation. Fortunately, the JSM’s current financial situation is on the upswing, and we hope to maintain this trend and further strengthen it.

These are our aspirations for the future. None of this would be possible without the cooperation of our members. We will make every effort to develop the science of microscopy and to nurture JSM further, and we would be grateful for your support and guidance.