FY2013 General Report - II. Governance & Administrative Transparency and Efficiency

1. Basic structures for governance and business operations

(1) BOG and BOC

Regular BOG meetings were held in May, October and February, and regular BOC meetings took place in May and February. In the BOG meeting in May, the performance and achievements of FY2012 were reported and evaluated. Key issues were discussed in detail by both the BOG and BOC.  Examples include: New BOG member and Auditor (May meeting), evaluation of research (October meeting) and discussion on future expansion (October meeting), those were discussed in detail in combined sessions that included all the relevant sub-committees of both the BOG and BOC.  In addition, the Mid-term Strategy for external funding was discussed by BOG and BOC in May, approved by BOG and submitted to the government. A web or telephone conference system continued to be utilized for the BOG and BOC meetings to enhance efficiency as well as to promote active participation of governors and councilors who were in distant locations.

The CEO/President continued to exercise leadership in all matters of daily operation of the OIST SC and the OIST Graduate University and ensure steady implementation of the business plan.

(2) Auditors

Auditors conducted a total of 3 periodical audits, in September 2013, Februray 2014 and April 2014, on all aspects of business operations. A report was prepared after each audit on the result and was explained to the President. At the same time, it was informed to all the concerning VPs of the results and recommendations. The Auditors' Audit Report for FY2013 will be submitted to BOG and BOC in May 2014. Aside from the periodical audit activities, the Auditors gathered information on the business operation through weekly meetings with VPAC and from the President, Provost, and other VPs when necessary to gain better understanding of the management condition of this University.

(3) Organization

The CEO/President continued to exercise leadership in all matters of daily operation of the OIST SC and the OIST Graduate University and ensured steady implementation of the business plan.

OIST continued to hold regular (i.e. monthly, weekly and daily) meetings with the President/CEO, Provost/Vice CEO, Vice Presidents, and Chairperson of Faculty Assembly etc. to share information and review the status of business operations. In addition, hold all-hands meetings as necessary.

OIST maintained close communication with CAO by preparing and implementing the Quarterly Meetings and by participating in the Expert Panel meeting. Quarterly Meetings took place in April, August, October and January, while the Expert Panel meetings took place in July and October. In addition, Mr. Noji, an Expert Panel member, visited OIST. In addition to making a monthly report of the budget execution status to the CAO, information such as the status of implementation of the Business Plan was communicated to the CAO in the Quarterly Meetings.

(4) IT Service

The strengthening of IT staff and resources continued this year. A search for chief information officer was conducted, and an applicant appointed to the position. A Networking and Telecommunications manager was appointed to oversee all aspects of University networking telecommunications. Two new desktop support staff members were added to the desktop support team in order to continue to meet demand. A search was initiated to fill several vacant positions in High Performance Computing that will work closely with researchers to ensure that OIST HPC resources run effectively and are aligned with their needs.

The OIST external network connections have been dramatically expanded and enhanced and now connect the University into several Okinawan networking initiatives, such as hokubu kouiki. This has allowed for the expansion of the OIST network to the Churaumi Aquarium site beyond Nago to support the marine research station installed there, and for connectivity to several data center facilities that will be used to house OIST backup and disaster recovery hardware. These networking expansions have also resulted in substantial cost savings, as OIST has moved away from more expensive commercial offerings.

The IT Service and Support committee has met regularly and continues to deliberate and recommended policy changes and procurements aimed and improving the quality and efficiently of OIST IT service. Policy recommendations to date have dealt with a range of areas including:

  • Mobile phone application and usage accounting
  • Computer support and service levels
  • Visitor and personal devices
  • Enterprise systems acquisition process and policy

Recommendations on standardization of have been implemented and procurement of standard desktops and laptops is now in place.

The Scientific Computing Committee has met and discussed a range of topics surrounding High Performance Computing, the committee has served well as a forum to discuss and resolve any contention or resource issues in the HPC facility. The committee will developed recommendations on the acquisition of the next generation OIST HPC system over the coming year.

The finance and administration ERP system, which underpins all budget and financial transactions, has been successfully migrated to new physical servers and performance is substantially improved. Several macros and processes have been developed to format and export ERP data to aid in budget forecasting and accounting for the faculty.

The online evaluation system for student performance continues to function well, with further enhancements to functionality made over the year in response to faculty and user feedback.

The Sakai learning management system has expanded in scope and now provides more general online training in areas such as safety and general orientation.

(5) University Library

The Library continued to build an outstanding range of electronic journal and book subscriptions to meet that needs of the very diverse research community at OIST. OIST subscribed to 815 new journals, including Wiley’s Science, Technology, Medicine Collection (788 titles) and other individual new journals (27 journals). The total number of electronic journal titles now is 6283. OIST also implemented Wiley “Tokens” to reduce the cost of downloading full text articles from Wiley journals. This avoids use of personal or OIST corporate credit cards. By using tokens, individual downloaded articles are available at a discounted price. This provides substantial cost savings by avoiding full subscriptions to low usage journals. In addition, additional historical archives were added and the online book collection was expanded by adding 73 Safari Online Technology Books. OIST purchased 88 new hard copy books and registered 57 donated books to give total current holdings of 1537 books, launched 24-hour library access with Secom ID card access for students, faculty, and researchers, and provided a web-form-based procedure for book purchase by students & staff.

Interlibrary Loan use included:

  • Loan Orders: 69
  • Copy Orders: 225
  • Copy Requests: 58
  • Total:352

2. Budget Allocation and Execution

OIST continued to have budgetary units, which are the allocation/execution unit, consistent with the organizational structure of the university and allocate the necessary budget to implement the Business Plan to each budgetary unit. A budget analyst was assigned to each division and the budget allocation and reporting process was reinforced. Budget planning for external funding from different sections in charge is consolidated in one single database for easier reporting.

The status of budget execution was reported monthly to the President/CEO at the monthly Budget Review Meeting in order to ensure appropriate and integrated budget management including the Subsidy for Facilities. Budget execution status was reported to CAO. In addition to these, a specific budget execution report was made in order to monitor the budget execution status of the external funding in details. Conducted two budget re-allocations during the fiscal year and also took advantage of the budget carry over procedure in order to properly and effectively use the available funds.

The Sponsored Research Section received a staff from the accounting section and streamlined the support for post-award fund management in accordance with the variety of rules of the funding agencies while coordinating with the Budget and Accounting Section.

As cases are broken into some patterns when individual budget expenditures exceed a predetermined threshold, the section leader in charge of compliance reviewed the appropriateness of the negotiated contracts which do not exceed 5M JPY and the VPAC and a committee including external experts reviewed the ones which exceed 5M JPY. From a view point of efficiency and risk management, we keep the current threshold. Reductions of contract amounts and streamlines of contracting procedures were promoted.

OIST conducted internal audit based on the internal auditing plan under the Vice President in charge of compliance, as well as developed human resources through sending our staff to accounting training courses provided by MOF Accounting Center and national school in Kyusyu to ensure proper contract, procurement and accounting procedures.

OIST had staff in charge of procurement to learn about systems and rules at other institutions (Riken, KEK, Tsukuba University and NCNP) to improve their knowledge and skills and compliance sensitivity.

A committee consisting of external experts took place twice and the committee reviewed contracts concluded by the University to ensure proper implementation of the tendering. And improved contracting procedures based on their advice. The number of holding of Specification and Technical Review Committee is six.

OIST continued to utilize and manage cautiously the leasing contracts to acquire large and leading edge research equipment efficiently within and budget available. Cutting edge research equipment, such as a super-resolution microscpe and an X-ray CT microscope, was introduced with lease contract. The total contract lease value was held within 600 million yen.

  • Leasing contract number: 20
  • Leasing contract amount: JPY 567, 268,128

3. Efficiency of Business Operations

(1) Appropriate and Efficient Budget Execution

OIST centralized maintenance contracts to a common research support section, continued to promote common/shared use of research equipment and tools, and to utilize the methods of unit price contracts and bulk purchase. OIST also centralized yearly maintenance contracts into one Kessai, enhancing operational efficiency.

The research equipment database (RED) and the on-line reservation system (REServe) were extended to cover most of the common and shared research equipment. Unit price contracts were set up for consumables used by multiple researech units, such as sequencing reagents.

An internal team has been appointed and has improved the DFA website, the travel regulations and procedures, an accelerated approval procedure for advance payment and has designed and implemented the project of introduction of the Procurement card.

To ensure proper and efficient implementation of tendering and contracts, we established the Contract Review Committee consisting of external experts, which reviews contracts concluded by the University. The fourth (July 25, 2013) and the fifth (Jan 22, 2014) meetings were held in FY2013. A Procurement contract Committee of internal member reviewed 15 item contracts in order to ensure proper implementation of procurement.

OIST also established a Specification Formulation Committees and a Technical Examination Committee consisting of external experts to have their review on specifications of large research tools/equipment for each purchase exceeding 50m yen. In addition, OIST ensured budget execution in compliance with laws and PRP, by having contracts that exceed certain amount reviewed by VPAC.

Thorough information disclosure was ensured, such as by disclosing the reason for the negotiated contract when those expenditures exceeded a predetermined threshold:

  • Building construction 2.5M
  • Goods 1.6M
  • Services 1.0M
  • Lease 0.8M

OIST simplified the procedure of the negotiated contracts to streamline the procurement activities while ensuring proper verification. In addition, we considered further efficient procedures to be implemented in FY2014.

At the same time, review PRP28 and procurement policy, rules and procedures regularly from the perspectives of efficiency and simplicity. OIST enhanced data processing routine through Access Data Base utilization.

OIST revised standard agreements (Procurement/Service/Leasing), strengthening compliance with regulations.

OIST reassessed over all risks, reviewed existing insurance policies/contracts properly (fire: -28%, movable property: -27%).

OIST conducted appropriate preparations complying with the increase of consumption tax, and collected reference data comparing prices of supplies and equipment etc. in Japan and abroad and used such data in direct negotiation with manufacturers/agents/forwarders to improve cost efficiency of purchasing.

OIST continued to formalize procurement procedure through direct negotiation and contract/tender with oversea suppliers.

OIST made preparations to reduce expenses of total operation by outsourcing supply store of research supplies (In operation on FY2014).

Metrics:

  • Reduction of costs by unit‐price contracts and bulk purchase: 23 contracts
  • Increase of use of the internal supply store (research and office supplies)
    • Procured amount: JPY 24,988,905 (Plus JPY 7,217,959 compared to FY2012)
    • Increase of customers: 1,142 people (Plus151 people)
    • Reduced expenses of Office Supplies: 3%
  • Ratio of purchase contracts concluded through tendering or other competitive processes (number of contracts and amount) (based on April 7, provisional figure)
    • Contract number: 127 (31.0%) [FY2012 157(35.0%)]
    • Contract amount: JPY 6,387 million (86.7%)  [FY2012 JPY 6,021 million]
  • OIST released 'Acceptance Inspection Handbook', for more appropriate procedure strengthening staff of covering appropriate procedure.

(2) Effective Use of Assets

Auditorium was well-utilized, including regular external use, and other facilities operating at or near capacity. OIST campus housing occupancy was consistently above the level required by the PPP.

4. Personnel Management

(1) Recruitment

An internal candidate was promoted to the position of Acting CIO while an international search was made for the permanent CIO. The Acting CIO won the competition for the permanent position and assumed the role in April 1, 2014. An Executive Vice President was hired whose roll includes establishing the Development Office. An Interim Dean of Faculty Affairs was hired and will commence work in April 2014.

The expansion of University function and size requires creation of new sections and reinforcement of others. All new positions are first advertised internally to give opportunities for internal mobility and allow for internal structural adjustments. Temporary peak in activity are managed through hiring under fixed term contracts and if possible through temporary staff reallocation.

Number of Employees (PDF)

  • Ratio of staff in administrative divisions to the total headcounts: 149/548 (27%)
    (Administrative staff includes academic affairs, student support, facility management, President and Provost Office, procurement, HR, Administrative compliance, Business development, budget and accounting.)
  • Ratio of labor costs to the total operational budget: 38%

OIST held the Gender Equality Committee meetings 9 times, and the measures such as outreach activities for young female students and the installation of diaper change tables have been discussed and implemented to support female researchers and female administrators. In the faculty recruitment process, a person responsible for diversity has been appointed to ensure that the OIST diversity standards for the search are met.

Diversity at the workplace and the gender balance have been respected and promoted in line with the relevant PRPs:

To improve the gender balance among all job levels and categories, particularly to establish a support system for female researchers and administrative staff, three task forces for promoting gender equality were established under the President’s leadership in January 2013. They are currently preparing recommendation to provide in May 2014.

To promote recruitment of new graduates, OIST shifted to “year-round recruitment,” which does not limit when to hire, as well as actively participating in joint job fairs.

The Resource Center was established to provide services concerning employees’ lives after joining OIST.

OIST continued to strengthen relationships with the Onna Elementary School. This year a full time advisor on English Elementary education was employed by OIST. The advisor facilitates the integration of OIST families with the local school community through her work at Onna-Son Elementary School, and has contributed to the school`s program by working with children in English since July 2013. As part of OIST`s continued effort to improve the educational environment for school age children, she also provides professional advice on appropriate outcomes, teaching methods, and curricula for education in English in the OIST community setting throughout the on campus After School and Holiday program with great success. OIST staff members have also given English reading classes at the school every Tuesday morning.

(2) Compensation

Under the President’s initiative, the “Salary Review Committee” consisting of top management in OIST was established to discuss, decide, and take actions on the major compensation issues including salary system and annual evaluation in a cross-departmental manner.

In response to the new salary system introduced in the previous fiscal year, in which the amount of annual base salary is determined within the respective range based on individual job performance and potentials, we conducted surveys to examine the appropriate amount of salary for each employee according to job categories, including participating in Salary Market Study.

OIST continued to reduce the labor cost by means including reducing executives’ salaries. In line with the new Postdoctoral Scholar Program, postdoc salaries were fixed by year since PhD. This was implemented in January 2014. It will reduce the overall compensation paid to postdocs. OIST also reviewed retirement benefits, taking into account the reduction of retirement allowance of national government employees.

Compensation / Salary Level of OIST Officers and Employees (PDF)

Regular coordination meetings held with a specific purpose company (SPC). No change in rent necessary for FY2013 or 2014. Study for possible introduction of user levy on all university staff carried out.

(3) Training and evaluation

Concerning compulsory training in compliance, OIST conducted a monthly course for newly joined employees in FY2013 (times 12, participants 125) since all employees have taken this course in FY2012. Further, we developed e-learning contents so that faculty and employees were able to take this course at a time to suit their convenience, and implemented from March 2014.

As in the previous two fiscal years, OIST provided training programs throughout the year.  Some of these concerned daily duties, such as computer skills, while others targeted specific topics, such as performance evaluation feedback training for supervisors.  Another discussed managing cultural diversity and included intercultural understanding sessions.

The Research Safety Section produced new on-line training materials, such as the laser safety, and updated many other contents, such as security export. The record of completion of variety of training programs by each researcher is registered online as well as marked in a newly-designed training record card, and created and published "General Orientation" and "Special Orientation" information booklets for new comers, which have been utilized not only for new comers orientation but also for recruiting students and new employees. They are also available in PDF on the internal section website so as to be available before arriving to OIST.  

A total of 183 participants enrolled in English language lessons during FY 2013.

OIST English teacher Kevin Hunt gave the following talks at OIST Café events:

  • “Writing a Statement of Purpose in English”, Tokyo (June 16th)
  • “English Communication in Science”, Sapporo (June 19th)
  • “Academic English Presentation Skills for Scientists”, Osaka (Aug. 10th)
  • “Academic English Presentation Skills for Scientists”, Tokyo (Nov. 2nd)
  • “Academic English Presentation Skills for Scientists”, Nagoya (Nov. 3rd)
  • “Academic English Presentation Skills for Scientists”, Fukuoka University, (Dec. 18th)
  • “Academic English Presentation Skills for Scientists”, OIST (Jan. 24)
  • “Academic English Presentation Skills for Scientists”, Tokyo (Feb. 1st)

A total of 153 students enrolled in Japanese language courses in FY2013, including summer interns.

To start the fifth year of the current performance evaluation process of HR, OIST revised the process largely by newly established the “Salary Review Committee” under the President’s initiative. Major revisions were made in simplifying the rating scales for appropriate distribution of evaluation, reviewing and clarifying promotion criteria to assure equitability, and creating dual career ladder to give employees with high expertise and skills the same treatment as managers. Procedures were inserted by the Salary Review Committee to ensure gender equity in the performance ratings and in the award of merit.

To assure that the employees are well informed about these revisions and the system of management by objectives, OIST held training courses for employees in the annual evaluation season.

Technical seminars, training sessions, and user meetings were organized to facilitate introduction of latest research technologies and improvement of the operations of the research facility.

Employee Training FY2013 (PDF)

(5) Compliance

The Vice President for Administrative Compliance (VPAC) continued to review the budget execution status and contracts exceeding a predetermined threshold as well as new and revised policies, rules and procedures from a view point of compliance. Preparation of Document Management System has been completed to start in FY2014.

OIST established and revised policies, rules and procedures appropriately at the right time in response to revision of relevant laws and regulations or changing situation, and held the PRP review committee in April and November to maintain consistency in policies, rules and procedures as a whole.

OIST ensured appropriate creation, management and retention of documents concerning decision making and its processes in the operation, based on the Act concerning the Management of Public Documents (Act No. 66 of 2009) and University policy and rules that are developed accordingly.

OIST conducted internal audit based on the plan under the Vice President in charge of compliance to ensure proper contract, procurement and accounting procedures.

OIST posted materials and Q&As concerning Compliance into OIST internal web-site.

As cases are broken into some patterns when individual budget expenditures exceed a predetermined threshold, the section leader in charge of compliance reviewed the appropriateness of the negotiated contracts which do not exceed 5M JPY and the VPAC reviewed the ones which exceed 5M JPY.

Concerning compulsory training in compliance, we conducted the monthly course for newly joined employees in FY2013 since all employees have taken this course in FY2012. Further, we developed e-learning contents so that faculty and employees were able to take this course at a time to suit their convenience, and implemented from March 2014.

To facilitate evaluation of situations that may give rise to conflicts of interest, VPAC required all University officers and employees to disclose their external activities and commitments on a formal basis with start of this FY2013 based on the PRP Section 22.3.1 in “Avoiding Conflicts of Interest & Commitment”, and implemented its management and operation.

Based on relevant laws, guidelines, and international standards, new rules were established for radioisotopes management, X-ray instrument management, laser safety, machine shop, and marine science research.

The Research Safety Section co-hosted the Symposium on Ethics “Research Contributing to Health and Welfare Fostered by Ethical Conduct” with CITI Japan with the attendance of 189 people. It also hosted seminar on research ethics for researchers and students "Potential Risks of Human Subjects Research" with the attendance of 28 people. 

The Research Safety Section distributed English and Japanese "Code of Conduct for Scientists" published by the Science Council of Japan to every unit and section in order to further cultivate awareness towards research ethics.

The Animal Resources Section re-evaluated its operation to match the standard of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International. Following the submission of documents for accreditation, an on-site inspection the AAALAC representatives was completed.

6. Information Disclosure and Public Relations

OIST continued to disclose the information appropriately on the OIST web site etc. to comply with the School Education Act and the Act on Access to Information held by IAIs.

The OIST Website is one of the few truly bilingual websites in Japan. The Media Section continued to publish Web stories highlighting research and various event activities at OIST on a twice-weekly basis. The News Center section of the Website allowed newspaper reporters, TV crews, magazine publishers, vendors and OIST people to freely download photos and videos for their use.

In last year’s report, OIST based FY2012 statistics for “the Website” on the combined hits from the main public website www.oist.jp and the workgroup public website groups.oist.jp – the totality of OIST public websites at the time. However, we continue to expand our web assets, making the definition of “the OIST Website" more complicated, so this year we are reporting only main public website hits for both FY2012 and FY2013 to make apparent the yearly increase in traffic.

Number of unique visitors:

  • FY2011: 272,173
  • FY2012: 487,736
  • FY2013: 506,471

FY2013 showed a 17.26% increase in Unique Visitors, with 80.22% of Visits coming from Japan. Second in number of Visits was the United States, with 6.38% - an increase of 14.43% over FY2012. In the past year, visits from Japan increased by 2.69%; Australia, 42.49%; India, 33.60%; Canada, 25.42%; and United Kingdom, 14.73%.

The publication of OIST financial statement has been considered with the help of external auditors and it has been decided to not implement it this year as a low priority. It will be considered again next year.

OIST maintained the library of OIST Policies, Rules and Procedures on the very effective bilingual website. 

The latest information on the OIST Human Subjects Research Review Committee and its meeting has been disclosed on the website of Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in accordance with the relevant guidelines.

Return to FY2013 Annual Report Table of Contents