Congratulations from President Makoto Gonokami on the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Susumu Kitagawa, Executive Vice President and Distinguished Professor of Kyoto University, for being awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Dr. Kitagawa developed a novel type of porous material known as "metal-organic frameworks" (MOFs) , which is constructed by combining metals and organic molecules. These materials have countless minute pores and depending on external stimulation, such as pressure, temperature, or light, the structure can be flexibly modified. His radical discovery is hailed around the world as largely contributing to bringing about a sustainable society in a wide range of fields from energy and environment to medical.

Dr. Kitagawa proactively utilized RIKEN's large synchrotron radiation facility, SPring-8, from 2002 in the early stages of its operation. A remarkable achievement was that the porous material that he developed trapped gas molecules, which was demonstrated for the first time in the world by using synchrotron radiation. Even after that, along with being a driving force for numerous advanced research as a SPring-8 user, Dr. Kitagawa made large contributions to the advancement of synchrotron radiation measurement technology and to expanding their application.

Moreover, for 12 years starting from 2007, Dr. Kitagawa strived to develop and popularize new measurement methods that used synchrotron radiation, as a Team Leader and Senior Visiting Scientist at the RIKEN SPring-8 Center. Dr. Kitagawa's activities greatly advanced various fields of research across a wide range of fields with SPring-8 as a base and those results continue to have the effect of stimulating many researchers.

At RIKEN, we are advancing a plan for the SPring-8-II Project, which will upgrade the current SPring-8 performance 100 times higher. It will re-start operations in 2029 as a next-gen synchrotron radiation facility in 2029, following about a year of suspended operations. The upgrade will make it possible to have even higher precision and rapid measurements, and our aim is for the facility to be a shared hub used by even more researchers and industries.

In closing, I once again offer my deepest congratulations to Dr. Susumu Kitagawa on his Nobel Prize in Chemistry. We will further develop the research path pioneered by Dr. Kitagawa using a large synchrotron radiation facility (SPring-8), and RIKEN will continue to contribute even more to solving challenges on a global scale and to the further development of science and technology.