The JWRI celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022, and on October 24th of last year, a 50th anniversary ceremony and celebration was held. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you who attended and to all of you who have supported the progress of this research institute over the past 50 years.

 The JWRI was formally established in 1972 as the Welding Research Institute on the advice of the Science Council of Japan to meet academic and industrial requirements. Our institute has energetically promoted both fundamental and applied research from 1972 and has since become the only institute in Japan, and also the world’s leading institute, in the field of welding and joining. The institute was reorganized into the Joining and Welding Research Institute (JWRI) in 1996 to meet the increased demand for “joining” in industry, because of the diversification required by the trend towards globalization in manufacturing, and in response to scientific and technological progress. Furthermore, JWRI was recognized as a Joint Usage/Research Center by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in 2009. I began my tenure at the Joining and Welding Research Institute in 1996, when the Research Institute was established, so I have been working with the Joining and Welding Research Institute since its beginning. I am the first director from the Joining and Welding Research Institute.

 The JWRI is a small-scale institute. Thus, JWRI has a framework of quick decision-making and can speedily react to and meet current demands. It is important to reform the institute in line with the times while still taking advantage of its unique characteristics. The JWRI hopes to continue to take the same attitude into the next 50 years.

 In April 2022, a research center, the “Smart Processing Research Center”, attached to JWRI was reorganized to become the “Research Center for Additive Joining Application (RAJA)” to meet the new demands for “joining” in manufacturing. The RAJA promotes advanced research on linear coating (one-dimensional joining), plane coating (two-dimensional joining) and additive manufacturing (three-dimensional joining), thus creating a new academic branch in the field of welding and joining. In the first place, AM is like a process of small welds, but the trend that AM is now being used even in places where safety and reliability are required, thus AM has activated the joining industry.

 In JWRI, three research divisions for fundamental and applied research, namely “Materials Joining Process”, “Materials Joining Mechanism” and “Materials Joining Assessment”, and also a research center, the RAJA for advanced research with a focus on the nanoscale, work closely together and perform world-leading research in the field of welding and joining. Furthermore, JWRI as the Joint Usage/Research Center on Joining & Welding annually accepts “Joint Research Collaborators” numbering more than 200 professors and researchers, who belong to about 70 other universities and public research institutes in Japan, and has established the “JWRI International Joint Research Collaborator (JIJReC)” program. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of the education and development of personnel at the JWRI, generally 100 graduate students and undergraduates who belong to the Faculty of Engineering, Osaka University, study at the JWRI every year.

 JWRI is also promoting an inter-university cooperative research project that involves 6 institutes from different universities supported by MEXT. Therefore, JWRI plays an important role as a world center of excellence in the field of welding and joining.

Director
Hidetoshi FUJII