KEK was established in 1997 in a reorganization of the Institute of Nuclear Study, the University of Tokyo (established in 1955), the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (established in 1971), and the Meson Science Laboratory of the University of Tokyo (established in 1988).[1] However, the reorganization was not a simple merge of the aforementioned laboratories. As such, KEK was not the only new institute created at that time, because not all of the work of the parent institutions fell under the umbrella of high energy physics; for example, the Center for Nuclear Study, the University of Tokyo, was concurrently established for low energy nuclear physics in a research partnership with RIKEN.