Today SMI signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, facilitating the exchange of visiting scientists to advance common research projects. RIKEN http://www.riken.jp/en is Japan’s largest comprehensive research institution, encompassing a network of world-class research centres and institutes across Japan with a staff of more than 3000 people. The Nishina Center is located inside the main campus of RIKEN in Wako in the west of Tokyo and operates one of the world-leading facilities on the production of unstable exotic nuclei. SMI's closest collaboration is with Chief Scientist Prof. Masa Iwasaki of the Advanced Meson Laboratory, with whom we closely collaborate in the field of kaonic atoms and kaon-nucleon bound states. The collaboration stems from the time when SMI director Prof. Eberhard Widmann was working in the Meson Science Laboratory of RIKEN with Prof. Ken Nagamine in 1997-1998.