Goals and achievements of the COE Program on Pulsed Power at Kumamoto University

Summary form only given. Based on a MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) report entitled "A Policy for the Structural Reform of Universities," the 21st Century COE (Center of Excellence) Program was established in 2002 to cultivate a competitive academic environment among Japanese universities by giving targeted support to the creation of world-standard research and education bases (centers of excellence). By thus raising the standard of both education and research at them, the program seeks to elevate Japanese universities to the world's highest echelons, while fostering people of talent and creativity who will be qualified to assume roles as world leaders. The COE Program on Pulsed Power Science and its applications at Kumamoto University was created in September 2003 (http://pps.coe .kumamoto- u.ac.ip/en/index en.html). Three main objectives of the COE are (i) to perform research work at a high level equivalent to the best found anywhere in the world; (ii) to train young researchers at a very high international standard; and (iii) to become one of the international cores of excellence in research in the field of pulsed power. Ten projects leaders with different main disciplines have been educating the 85 Young Researchers at the doctoral level and 25 Research Associates at the postdoctoral level by the interdisciplinary approach. The members of the COE group are exposed to different disciplines in the weekly seminars that are held 145 times at the COE. The COE sponsored 10 young researchers spent limited durations of typically from one to four months at laboratories of internationally reputable centers of research located outside Japan. The researches of the COE program have been carried out by three main research groups focusing on three main branches: (i) controlled destruction of solid scrap materials made suitable for recycling using pulsed power; and (ii) the science and applications of micro- conversion of materials using pulsed power, (iii) applications of pulsed power to bio systems and living organisms such as inducing apoptosis to cancer cells. The successful and rapid research progress has led to the formation of a new Bioelectrics Research Center that was established in Kumamoto University in 2007. The Bioelectrics Research Center in Kumamoto is also part of consortia of five Institutions in the world. During four and half years, the large number of peer reviewed publications of 426 papers in archival journals, 302 papers in proceedings of refereed international conferences and 32 books have been published by the 10 projects leaders; and 270 archival papers and 420 presentations at international conferences as well as the 49 awards for "Best Papers" and "Best Presentations' have been published by the young researchers.