After a welcome speech by the Director General of NIAES, the Director of the Department of Research Planning and Coordination explained the outline of research made in NIAES and its future research plan. The committee discussed some points concerning 1) research targets of NIAES, 2) roles of the External Advisory Committee, 3) the evaluation procedure for research progress and individual researcher achievements, 4) publicity activities for research achievements in NIAES, 5) enhancement of research activities of NIAES, and 6) research strategy and methods in the areas of global environment, inventory of agro-environment, agroecosystem, biodiversity, and risk assessment of chemicals.

The contents of review given by the External Advisory Committee and the responses by NIAES have been made public on the Internet web page.

In October 1999, NIAES set up the Preparatory Committee for Founding the Independent Administrative Institution (a semi-autonomous agency), the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences. This committee, mostly comprised of NIAES directors, held 27 meetings up to March 2001, just before the reformation of NIAES.

In these meetings, the following issues concerning the new NIAES were discussed: 1) the five-year plan of the institute, 2) re-organization of the staff, 3) distribution system of research funds, 4) evaluation system for research progress in the institute and achievements of each researchers, 5) decision-making system of the institute, and 6) the institute rules and regulations.

The main research targets of the new NIAES, corresponding to the research missions, were settled as follows: 1) strategies to ensure stable food supplies under global environmental change, 2) assuring the safety of food and environment utilizing the natural circulation function of agriculture, and 3) succession of the agro-environmental resources to future generations.

Every research project and theme was reviewed and integrated under the three research targets described above.