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Interview : Hope for Synthesiology−137 Synthesiology - English edition Vol.1 No.2 (2008) (Kobayashi)You can do that in the United States.(Lester)You can do that. Why can we do that? I think partly because it is possible for people in industry to publish in Type 1 Basic Research journals, so there is an opportunity for those people to move back and forth. But in Japan, I don’t think it is so common for people in industry to publish in Type 1 Basic Research. It doesn’t happen so easily.(Kobayashi)Lastly, do you have any future advice for the journal?(Lester)I hesitate to offer advice as you have been thinking very hard about this and I don’t think I have very much to add. In terms of the strategy, what may be valuable—although I hesitate to say this because it may not be the right thing for you—but I wonder whether a valuable step would be to highlight certain areas of application over others; in other words, to say, “this journal is about Type 2 Basic Research, but we are going to emphasize certain areas of application”. I think that the challenge is to move this beyond AIST. That’s where, in the long run, you want to go. So the question is how to do that. You can’t go directly from the current situation where the reviewing is conducted entirely within AIST to “involving everybody”. I mean, in a sense, it’s like President Yoshikawa’s point about describing a logical progression or scenario. The goal here is to have a general journal that is read very widely. But to get there you will have to move in stages. And the question is how to think about these stages. One way to think about them would be to say that the first step you are going to take when you move beyond AIST is to focus on a particular domain of applications –maybe the environment, or health or energy. Then draw in a readership and a reviewer-ship around those areas and then maybe the next step is to increase the number of application areas. I think the same scenario method you are calling for in the preparation of articles may also be used to plan the development of the journal itself. In some sense, the journal is also a ‘product’, or the practical realization of a research activity. (Kobayashi)Thank you. Today’s discussion is very fruitful and helpful to us. And in thinking of the future of Synthesiology, it is valuable. We would like to express our sincere gratitude for joining our discussion.(Lester)My pleasure. I’d like to congratulate you on the publication of your first issue.(*)R.K. Lester and M. J. Piore, “Innovation”; Harvard University Press 2004.Profile of Prof. Richard K. LesterDirector of the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) and a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Born in 1954 and graduated from Imperial College (UK). His research focuses on industrial innovation and the management of technology. He has led several major studies of national and regional productivity, competitiveness and innovation performance commissioned by governments and industrial groups around the world.(65)−

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