The research and administrative staff of IPMU gathered on October 7, 2011, to celebrate the 4th anniversary of the Institute. They listened to Director Murayama's "State of IPMU" speech, which was followed by a lunch-time reception. In his speech, Murayama firmly said, "We started this institute four years ago from nothing, but by now we definitely have joined the ranks of top-level institutes researching fundamental questions about the universe."
His remark has a convincing foundation. On the institute-building front, we now have 67 full-time faculty and postdoctoral fellows, and 36 administrative and research support staff. Including joint appointments and students, IPMU is now an international research center for some 200 researchers and many visitors. On the scientific front, the number of publications in refereed journals has reached more than 560, 236 in FY2010 alone. The quality of the work is well recognized in the community and as competitive as other top-level places based on such impact indexes as the number of citations.
The happiest news for IPMU during the past year was an announcement by the University of Tokyo to establish the Todai Institutes for Advaned Study (TODIAS) and to select IPMU as its first member-institute. This is a critical step for IPMU to become a permanent part of the University of Tokyo and to continue its research activities with a long-term commitment.
