Dear Prof Okada,

　As requested I am sending my review comments on the recent 55^th NIBB Conference and the Arabidopsis Meeting 2008 held last month in Okazaki.

I thought the meeting was a wonderful success. First the selection of speakers and the quality of the presentations was excellent making the meeting extremely satisfying scientifically and intellectually. The broad theme of ‘Frontiers of plant science in the 21^st century’ worked very well and I imagine drew wide interest from across the diverse research activity of NIBB. If you were to consider more focussed meetings in the future then I would suggest themes that still allow wide participation across your institute and throughout Japan. Examples could be ‘Systems biology and quantitative modelling’ or ‘Single-cell-level biology’ or ‘Next generation sequencing’ because although they are focussed on particular approaches, they are useful in showing how these new approaches can boost the research capacity of a whole range of groups.

I thought that it was an excellent idea to let the younger students organise the presentation and discussion session on the future of plant research and I very much enjoyed participating in the discussions. I also enjoyed the fact that there was time to chat with other scientists both at coffee breaks and at the poster sessions. The only thing you might check is that the younger participants felt there was enough time to ‘pluck up the courage’ to approach the speakers to talk about their work. At interesting meetings like this it can often be the case that the speakers and senior scientists are so engaged with the science and talking to their colleagues that it can be difficult for the younger scientists to find the time to talk to them.

With respect to enhancing opportunities for younger researchers to interact with most established PIs and visiting speakers, the only suggestion I can make is that you could consider setting up a lunch where each PI dined with a small group of (say 4-5) students to allow them time to talk about life in science and research in general. As alluded to above, it can often be daunting for early career scientists to approach older colleagues and this might be a useful way of helping them overcome any shyness in this regard. Having such an event early in the meeting would probably be most useful as it would allow them to get to know the visiting and senior scientists straight away and make them feel more confident about continuing discussions throughout the meeting.

All in all it was a really very enjoyable and stimulating meeting. It was very well organised and run very smoothly. I’d like to thank you and the organisers again for both the invitation and your excellent hospitality while we were with you in Okazaki.

I look forward to meeting you again soon.

Your sincerely,

Stefan