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Research paper : Formation of research strategy and synthetic research evaluation based on the strategy (N. Kobayashi et al.)−21−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.4 No.1 (2011) the crucial issues structurally into global issues that affect the wide-ranging field over long-term, social or domain issues that are mid-term issues for a nation, region, or an academic discipline, and the research programs that are conducted in relatively short-term in some specific field.An example of the global issues is the “realization of a society with sustainable development”. It is possible to consider a layer structure containing various issues within this subject. Four issues of sustainability – “environment, energy, and natural resource”, “human, organism, and food”, “society, economy, and industry”, and “information, culture, and education” – are identified as shown in Fig. 1. In these layers, the subject of sustainability changes from natural to artificial as it moves from the lower to the upper layer. The items in the lower layers need urgent attention, but an integrated effort must be made to cover all layers in the national, social, and international policies.What is important in forming the research strategy is to clarify the individual social issues that are reflected in the real world, to define and to break them down into research programs and individual research projects, and then to visualize their relationships. Figure 2 shows an example. The four points of sustainability are given as global issues, and the examples of related social issues and research programs are also shown. This method is a top-down or deductive method. The reason why it is called “deductive” is because the items that are assumptions of the strategy, such as the preservation of environment (realization of low-carbon society) in the context of the aforementioned sustainable society, can be deployed by the social agreement. However, complete deductive inference is not possible, and abduction[11]-[13] will always be in actionNote 4.On the other hand, in the formation of the research strategy, there is also the bottom-up strategy formation from experience, findings, and future vision of the researchers in the specific research field. For example, if it is possible to develop optical switch devices with ultra-low energy consumption, and an optical path communication network using these devices, the power consumption of the current Internet can be reduced by three orders, and a scenario that can make a great contribution to the realization of a low-carbon society can be written[14]. While this is one of the elemental technologies, the research program can be based on the realization of a group of elemental technologies. Although this can be called the inductive strategic formation where the main proposition is formed from the individual facts and certain logical inferences, this also includes the inference by abduction. That is because several hypotheses are necessary to create a specific system by bundling the current technologies. The abductive research strategy formation is necessary as the juncture of deductive top-down synthesis and inductive bottom-up synthesis.3.2 Synthesis of the research programFor the synthesis of the research program, it is necessary to consider on which domain the center of the research should be set within the academic framework. To solve the global and human issues (for example, industrial development and environment), it is impossible to rely on a single discipline, and we must muster knowledge of various fields including those of humanities and social sciences. Therefore, the domain will have a wide research field. In setting the research program, it is necessary to indicate the target of the research program set by the research strategy and the specific scenario to achieve the target. A roadmap is such a presentation along with the milestones that should be achieved along the time axis.It is necessary to set the individual research projects that comprise the research program , as shown in Fig. 3. In this case, the program is composed of a group of research projects (A, B, and C) that are topics of the several research domains.4 Structure of the research evaluation4.1 On research evaluationIn considering the research evaluation, ideally it should help the researchers and the research advancement, and, on the other hand, it should be used as an effective method to obtain Fig. 1 Layer structure of sustainable developmentFig. 2 Example of strategy formationSustainability ofsociety, economy, industrySustainability ofsociety, economy, industrySustainability ofinformation, culture, educationSustainability ofinformation, culture, educationSustainability of humans, organisms, foodSustainability of humans, organisms, foodSustainability ofglobal environment, energy, natural resourcesSustainability ofglobal environment, energy, natural resourcesService engineeringProduction, distribution, utilization of informationNew educational information toolUltra-high capacity ultrafast networkNew environmental energy technology to nurture next-generation industryHealth and medical engineering using nanotechnologyResearch programAdvancement of future-pioneering scienceFormation of recycling-based livelihoodScience and technology to create low environmental impact materialTraining, educationSustainability of information, culture, educationSustainability of society, economy, industrySustainability of humans, organisms, foodSustainability of global environment, energy, natural resourcesIntellectual vitalitySound economy and financeInternationalcompetitiveness of industryEnvironment, energyHealth, medical care, agingSocial issuesGlobal issues

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