Visit
Japanese MEXT Minister tours the installation
9 May 2023
In Japan, a MEXT Minister has a lot on his or her plate: the extensive Ministry is a huge administrative machine whose purview includes education, culture, sport, and science and technology with, as part of the latter category, oversight responsibility for Japan's participation in ITER.
Keiko Nagaoka, centre, has been the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) since August 2022.
Several times over the past 13 years, MEXT ministers have come to the ITER site to tour the installation and meet with project management. Minister Tatsuo Kawabata came in 2010, and two of his successors—Hirofumi Hirano in 2012 and Yoshimasa Hayashi in 2017—followed suit.
The present MEXT Minister, Keiko Nagaoka, first visited ITER in 2019 when she was the State Minister for Technology, a position that ranks second to Minister. She was back on Wednesday 3 May 2023 with a large party of deputies and advisors. Guided by ITER Deputy Director-General (Science and Technology) Yutaka Kamada and Acting Head of the Office of the Director-General Takayoshi Omae, she toured the cryoplant, the Assembly Hall and the machine assembly pit before holding a formal meeting with ITER Organization Director-General Pietro Barabaschi and senior management.
Minister Nagaoka toured the cryoplant, the Assembly Hall and the machine assembly pit with a large party of deputies and advisors before holding a formal meeting with ITER Organization Director-General Pietro Barabaschi and senior management.