been established in Japan and overseas, including: in 1984, the Life Science Center in Tsukuba in 1995, the Muon Research Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK in 1997, the Harima Institute, the Brain Science Institute in Wako, and the center at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA in 1998, the Genomic Sciences Center in 2000, the Yokohama Institute, which now contains four centers for research in the life sciences in 2002, the Kobe Institute, which contains the Center for Developmental Biology In October 2003, Riken's status changed again, to Independent Administrative Institution. As such, Riken is still publicly funded, and it is periodically evaluated by the government, but it has a higher degree of autonomy than before. Riken is regarded as the flagship research institute in Japan and conducts basic and applied experimental research in a wide range of science and technology fields including physics, chemistry, medical science, biology and engineering. Riken was the subject of international attention in 2014 after the Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cell (also known as STAP) publication, investigation, retraction, and suicide of Yoshiki Sasai, the principal investigator. Organizational structure The main divisions of Riken are listed here. Purely administrative divisions are omitted. Headquarters (mostly in Wako) Wako Branch Center for Emergent Matter Science (research on new materials for reduced power consumption) Center for Sustainable Resource Science (research toward a sustainable society) Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science (site of the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory, a heavy-ion accelerator complex) Center for Brain Science Center for Advanced Photonics (research on photonics including terahertz radiation) Research Cluster for Innovation Cluster for Pioneering Research (chief scientists) Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program Tokyo Branch Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (research on artificial intelligence) Tsukuba Branch BioResource Research Center Harima Institute Riken SPring-8 Center (site of the SPring-8 synchrotron and the SACLA x-ray free electron laser) Yokohama Branch (site of the Yokohama Nuclear magnetic resonance facility) Center for Sustainable Resource Science Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (research toward personalized medicine) Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (also based in Kobe and Osaka) Program for Drug Discovery and Medical Technology Platform Structural Biology Laboratory Sugiyama Laboratory Kobe Branch Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (developmental biology and nuclear medicine medical imaging techniques) Center for Computational Science (R-CCS, home of the Fugaku super computer and now decommissioned K computer) Facts and achievements Two Riken scientists have won the Nobel prize for