Vol.5 No.2 2012

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Round-table talks : Science and technology policy and synthesiology – Bridging science and values−131−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.5 No.2 (2012) ArimotoI think the US is doing alright so far, but it has its own problems. It has been five years since the Science of Science Policy fund was started, but a major part of the budgets has gone to analytical economic methodologies, according to information, and I think there’s a feeling that that isn’t right. When I introduced the Japanese SciSIP at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Dr. Lewis Branscomb, former professor of Harvard University and a prominent figure of the science and technology policy, said, “I claimed that one should maintain balance of policy analysis and policy design in these fields, but there are still lots of analyses and no resolutions.” This was a statement that made a powerful impression. Looking at the US and European university programs related to SciSIP, they are so diverse, and I believe there is still plenty of room for Japan to create a program that is internationally viable.Activities of RISTEX and SynthesiologyKobayashiRISTEX engages in funding and program formation for the science for science innovation policy. Can you tell us what the current situation is?ArimotoThe philosophical foundation of RISTEX is the Budapest Declaration (Commitment of Science in the 21st Century: “science for knowledge,” “science for peace,” “science for development,” and “science in society, science for society”). Based on this declaration, the “Study Group on the R&D for Social Challenges” (Chairman Hiroyuki Yoshikawa) declared the following three points: “technology to solve the problems of society,” “technology by the fusion of natural science, humanities, and social sciences,” and “technology not affected by market mechanism.” The Science and Technology for Society System was established, and this was reorganized and renamed as the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX). Actually, the first five years were in the style of ordinary research grants that was immature as a methodology. Therefore, we were criticized severely that papers were produced, but it was not quite in line with the initial objective of solving the social problems. In the past five years, we intensively changed the mechanism of priority setting, the standard for screening, and the ways of funding and doing management and evaluation. I think now these methods are becoming fairly mature.KobayashiThe RISTEX research projects are conducted throughout Japan. Can you give us some interesting cases?ArimotoWe have been supporting about 80 projects across Japan, For example, the representative of the project “Measurement of crime damages against children and the establishment of demonstrative core for crime prevention activity” in FY2007 was a section manager at the National Research Institute of Police Science. He said, “There is no scientific data for preventing crimes against children, and it is not set up so we can accumulate case studies. I want to do a scientific version of the traditional detective’s ‘a lot of legwork and the use of one’s insight to gather information.’” With the help from the region, data was collected, and areas of high risks were marked. Last year, the World Congress of the International Society for Criminology was held in Kobe where the case studies were presented, and the work was highly acclaimed.Another case that was beyond our expectation is the “Development and training for forensic interviews to protect children against crimes” that was selected in FY2008. The representative of this project was a psychology professor of the Hokkaido University. This is about who would interview a child when the child has become a victim of a crime. For example, when a stern-faced policeman asks questions or depending on how the questions are asked, the child may not tell the truth or become reluctant to talk out of fear. Therefore, with the cooperation of the Children’s Guidance Center, methods have been developed and personnel members of the regional centers have been trained. This method is spreading throughout Japan. This is a good example.In the “Nagahama Rule for the genome epidemiology research open to the region,” the representative was an official of Nagahama City. There was a proposal from a university to Nagahama that it wanted to use Nagahama citizens for a genomic epidemiology research. A committee was formed, and discussions were held among the university researchers, citizens, officials, and mediators. This resulted in an ordinance of Nagahama City, and an NPO was created to continue and expand these activities.As you can see, there is a story behind each project. It is said that the generalization of such stories is important, and I truly think so, being involved in the projects myself. To conceptualize, we need lots of case studies and scientific methods, and it is important to know and understand thoroughly the actual situation behind each case.Contact point with the utilization of research results in society, the aim of SynthesiologyAkamatsuThe problem is searched and extracted, the R&D is conducted, and a prototype is made. Perhaps it is small and much effort is needed until a certain stage, but it will be gotten done. To implement this in society, probably it may not be done in three years, but it may be done in five years. When it is done and can be shown, people will say “Great!”

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