Vol.5 No.3 2012

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Round-table talks : Creation of values and synthesis−219−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.5 No.3 (2012) The reason is simple. It is because the person who has the most knowledge of the result is the person who produced that result. There is no other person who understands the results better and who is capable of linking the results to social value than the researcher. Since there is no infrastructure that allows the research results to be linked to social value, to simply present the research result and say, “The rest is up to you,” is like throwing your own efforts in a trash can. At the present state, the choices are to wait until the infrastructure is built or to do it yourself, and in the absence of the infrastructure, the researcher must do things on his own to some extent.In fact, the researchers should raise their voices against the lack of infrastructure. Some things need not be done by a researcher, and if the infrastructure becomes available, the researcher may offer ideas only. However, such infrastructure is very difficult with the current lack of understanding by organizations, and even at the University of Tokyo, it took five years to organize the supporting organization for intellectual property, collaborative research, and start up ventures. There are still lots left to be done, and time is also required to shift consciousness. In the current situation, the researchers must do a lot. I think this is a sad thing about Japan for the development of science and technology.OnoIt’s the valley of death indeed.For the researcher to write the scenarioAkamatsuYou need a refined sense or intuition in the process by which the researcher presents the results to the world. Although it is not known whether it will be a good seller, one needs a degree of refined intuition to specifically show society that something is valuable. I think the researcher must cultivate this refined intuition in the future. If one becomes dependent on other people, I feel there is less opportunity to cultivate this refined intuition.IshikawaThere are variations. For this kind of “sense” or refined intuition, I think the word “art” fits well. Referring to Donald Knuth’s “The Art of Computer Programming,” art, originality, and intuition (or sense) are needed in science and technology. Since my field is sensing, I use this word and say “The Art of Sensing.” I want to say I dig deep, I do synthetic research, and I draw the whole picture. Perhaps this is a bit exaggerated.AkamatsuI’d like to say that Synthesiology is the art of research. Drawing from what you said, I hope people with refined artistic sense will present their research, and people without it would experience it through some sort of education. I hope the percentage of such refined people will increase.OnoTalking very optimistically, I want to think that people who produced socially valuable research results had some sort of scenario. I don’t think social value can be generated without a scenario. I feel that there are many researchers who realize that they had a scenario on retrospect but were never aware of it during the research processes. We’ve been surprised to find there were many cases where the authors became aware of scenarios when writing up the Synthesiology papers. If that is the case, it would be much better that those researchers create their scenarios from the beginning of the project and engage in the research as they mature the scenario.IshikawaIn this age, it is reckless to do research without a scenario. To have an original “scenario” that leads to social value is an absolute requirement, but there are many ways of writing this scenario, and the variations should be allowed. For example, one method is to do a thought experiment, where one assumes that a venture is built based on a research result, or a technological transfer is done to some company, and then write a scenario on how one’s technology will be returned to society and how it will be evaluated. I think the things that are lacking or points that the researchers are unaware of will become visible.AkamatsuBy trying to write the scenario, the scenario that existed in the mind becomes clear. By repeating this exercise, one becomes capable of writing a scenario for the future. I think one can develop such skills.OnoMaking scenarios is the first step, and then there must be the process of showing it to someone else, being criticized, revising it, and prioritizing it. Currently, however, it seems to me that the quality of scenario writing is poor at the beginning.Dr. Akira Ono

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