Vol.1 No.3 2009

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Article : Launch of AIST journal Synthesiology (H. Ohsaki et al.)−212 Synthesiology - English edition Vol.1 No.3 (2009) In companies, in principle, research results that link directly to profit are non-disclosed. For example, research on technology to increase yield of LSI is a major topic in the semiconductor industry. In general, yield is ratio of volume of raw material to volume of product. In the semiconductor industry, yield is the ratio of good products that show certain performance in all products produced such as IC chips and memories. Normally, yield is set at certain percentage to determine the product price. That means if the yield improves above certain percentage, the difference becomes company profit.Therefore, the details of yield improvement technology for LSI are extremely sensitive information for semiconductor companies. Even if the researcher or technician at a company proposes idea to improve yield, it is general practice not to disclose that information outside the company including academic societies.On the other hand, in principle, universities and public research institutes attempts to advance science and technology by using and diffusing accumulated knowledge. In reality, there are many cases where research results are intentionally not disclosed. If the research result is expected to cause economic loss, disclosure may be slowed or not done at all, to provide time to take measures against major loss. Also, in research whose objective is commercialization, results may not be disclosed due to strategic reasons. How were the results obtained? Are the results reproducible? Not disclosing the heart of research prevents the competitors who are also working on similar products from catching up.There is choice of disclosing the research result as patent. It is choice when there is financial security to start the next phase of research after some progress in application research. However, since the screening period for patent may require two to three years, another choice is licensing where exclusive rights to use the research result is provided. In this case, the agreement is not to disclose the details at least during the agreement period. As result, since not much can be written up as paper, outsiders make evaluation like “the research was done but not much result was obtained.”Negotiations and agreements on how much can be published as academic paper are settled prior to starting research. Here, the research leader’s ability to negotiate wisely with future development in mind greatly influences how much can be written in the paper. The “Japanese-style valley of death of research” where excellent research results fail to become innovations is said to be result of poor leadership. The result that can be disclosed differ greatly depending on the leader.In Type 2 Basic Research, particularly those that aim at commercialization and product realization, we can see that the results may not be disclosed for various reasons. However, Synthesiology was not created as refuge for researchers who do not have a place to make their statements. The objectives of this journal are to record matters that researchers feel that other researchers should know, and to reconstruct and use accumulated knowledge.6 Expectations and doubts for SynthesiologyThere were many comments on expectations for future activities of Synthesiology as journal to publish results of application research and its research process. On the other hand, there were comments that contrary to the wish of the journal to publish good papers, good papers may seek publication in traditional academic journals.[Sato] From the standpoint of someone (outside of AIST) wanting to submit papers, higher the quality of the paper, it is natural that they wish to submit papers to renowned, traditional academic journals. Papers for commercialization and product development are also accepted if they are innovative businesswise or superior as product, so may not be necessarily the priority to submit the papers.This problem is common to all newly launched journals. Synthesiology tries to extract certain laws and general theory for “synthesis” from a posteriori knowledge. Therefore, by targeting researchers who wish to have their papers evaluated from the perspective from synthetic learning, compartmentalization with traditional academic journals is possible. Also, Synthesiology has role to transmit messages to researchers who wish to establish Type 2 Basic Research as a discipline.On the other hand, as indicated in Section 4, many companies that do research, development, and product realization publish article on application research results and R&D process in their company publications and disclose them to the public. Synthesiology, as a new project for AIST, also tries to publish articles on application research results and R&D process. Therefore, one will be unable to see difference with corporate technical reports if only this point is emphasized.Papers that discuss research processes of basic research way before product realization is basically different from articles of corporate technical reports. Even if majority of the papers published in Synthesiology are submitted from within AIST, it will be strike a chord in people outside AIST if they describe what kind of thought process researchers have when they are sandwiched between academia and society, and how they sublimate their research.Whatever it is, we must look at the future of the Synthesiology to draw conclusions about success or failure of the new journal.On the other hand, it can be said that any research is worthy (58)−

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