About NII

History

Main Events

Month/year	Event
October 1973	Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture proposes an "Improved Circulation System for Academic Information" in the Third Report (Basic Policies for the Promotion of Scholarship) of the Science Council.
May 1976	Research Center for Library and Information Science (RCLIS) is established at the University of Tokyo.
November 1978	"A New Plan for Academic Information Systems" is presented to the Science Council by the Minister of Education, Science, Sports and Culture. The Science Council issues a response in January 1980.
April 1983	Center for Bibliographic Information is established at the University of Tokyo, with the reorganization of the Research Center for Information and Library Science.
December 1984	The NACSIS-CAT catalog information service is launched.
April 1986	National Center for Science Information Systems (NACSIS) is established, with the reorganization of the Center for Bibliographic Information, the University of Tokyo.
April 1987	The Science Information NETwork (SINET) is launched.
April 1987	The NACSIS-IR information search service is launched.
April 1988	Email service is launched.
January 1989	International connection between SINET and US (National Science Foundation: NSF)
January 1990	International connection between SINET and the UK (British Library: BL)
April 1992	The Inter-Library Loan (ILL) System is launched.
April 1992	The Internet backbone (SINET) is launched.
November 1993	Start of mutual access to databases through gateways with the Japan Information Center of Science and Technology (JICST)
April 1994	Start of ILL service with the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC)
November 1994	Chiba Annex (Inage-ku, Chiba City) is built.
October 1995	International connection between SINET and Thailand
April 1996	Start of ILL service with the National Diet Library
March 1997	International Seminar House for Advanced Studies, Inose Lodge (Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture) is established.
April 1997	Electronic Library Service is launched.
December 1997	An Advisory Panel on a Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field is established by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture.
January 1998	A proposal entitled "Promoting Computer Science Research" is published by the Science Council of Japan, calling for the establishment of a core institution for inter-university research in informatics.
March 1998	Advisory Panel on a Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field issues its report.
April 1998	Coordination Office is established for the Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field; committee is formed in May.
March 1999	Coordinating Committee of the Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field issues its report.
April 1999	Preparatory Office is established for the Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field; committee is formed in May.
July 1999	Preparatory Committee of the Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field issues its interim report.
February 2000	Operations move to the National Center of Sciences (Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo).
March 2000	Preparatory Committee of the Core Institution for Scientific Research in the Information Field issues its final report.
April 2000	National Institute of Informatics (NII) is established, with the reorganization of NACSIS and assumption of its functions.
January 2002	SuperSINET is launched.
April 2002	Ph.D. Program in Informatics is established in the Department of Informatics, Graduate University for Advanced Studies.
April 2002	GeNii (NII Academic Contents Portal) is released.
April 2002	Japan-U.S. document delivery service is launched.
June 2002	Intersystem linkage of catalogs with RLG in the U.S. is launched.
September 2002	Research Planning and Promotion Strategy Office is founded.
October 2002	International Course is established within Ph.D. Program in Informatics.
October 2002	Start of joint construction of meta-databases
January 2003	Global Liaison Office is formed.
April 2003	Initiation of Project to Improve Infrastructure for International Circulation of Scholarly Information
April 2004	NII begins a new chapter as a member of the new Inter-University Research Institute Corporation/Research Organization of Information and Systems.
April 2005	Official service of GeNii (the NII Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator) is launched.
June 2007	Science Information NETwork3 (SINET3) is launched.
April 2009	NII Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator (CiNii) and the KAKEN database of Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research are revamped. Japanese Institutional Repositories Online (JAIRO) is officially launched.
October 2010	Agreement to promote collaboration and cooperation between the Japanese Coordinating Committee for University Libraries (JULIB) and the National Institute of Informatics (NII).
February 2011	First NII Shonan Meeting takes place.
April 2011	Science Information NETwork4 (SINET4) is launched.
April 2011	Library Liaison Office is established.
November 2011	CiNii Books is launched.
April 2012	Japanese Institutional Repositories Online Cloud (JAIRO-Cloud) is launched.
October 2015	CiNii Dissertations is launched.
April 2016	Science Information NETwork4 (SINET5) is launched.
December 2018	Operation of Wide-area Data Collection Infrastructure (Mobile SINET) is launched.
March 2019	World's first round-the-globe ultra-high-speed 100 Gbps academic communications network is built.
December 2019	NII begins operating 400 Gbps Tokyo-Osaka link of SINET5.
October 2020	Kashiwa Annex is established in Kashiwa City, Chiba Pref.
February 2021	GakuNin RDM is officially launched.
March 2021	JAIRO Cloud (WEKO3) prior migration is completed.
April 2021	CiNii Research is officially launched.
June 2021	GakuNin LMS is officially launched.
November 2021	Japan Data Catalog for the Humanities and Social Sciences (JDCat) is launched.
April 2022	Science Information NETwork (SINET6) is launched.
April 2022	Scientific Research Digital Platform begins full-scale operation.
January 2023	New catalog information service (NACSIS-CAT/ILL) starts operating.
October 2023	JAIRO Cloud (WEKO3) full migration is completed.