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Opening Address

Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the organizers, I would like to express our hearty welcome to all of the participants of the 2nd KEK-Tanashi International Symposium, especially to those from abroad. We are very glad to have you all here, in this Tanashi Campus. The series of Tanashi Symposium was established in 1998 after the merger of three laboratories including Institute for Nuclear Study of the University of Tokyo, which was commonly known as INS-Tokyo. The INS has a long successful history of hosting a medium-sized international symposium every year on a topics concerning nuclear and particle physics. The new Research Organization, KEK-Tanashi also intends to continue such an activity in organizing a series of international symposia for the research field. This symposium is the 2nd of the new series and the 27th of the previous one. As you know, about 44 years ago Tanashi campus was opened for the first interuniversity research institute for nuclear and particle physics. At the beginning our Electron Synchrotron was built here as the first high-energy accelerator in Japan. The ES played an essential role in creating high energy physics in this country and provided very important steps toward the birth of KEK-PS and Synchrotron Radiation facilities. Since we are going to move to the Tsukuba site within several months to expand our research activities, we have just closed the ES this summer after 37-year successful operation. The wide research field we have developed at the ES will be taken over by new electron facilities of domestic and foreign laboratories. We think it is a good time to discuss the present status and future directions of this field at this occasion. So, the topics of this symposium is focused on Hadron and Nuclear Physics with Electromagnetic Probes. I hope that this symposium will contribute to further development of this field through active and fruitful discussions. In conclusion, I wish all participants a pleasant stay in Tokyo. Thank you for your attention.

Shojiro Sugimoto President of the 2nd KEK-Tanashi International Symposium