Science for Society is to be done within the Society
1 Research into
Artifacts, Center for Engineering, the
2 Science Integration Program - Humans, the
3 Fonobono Research Institute
In order to
celebrate 75 years of the International Council for Science (ICSU), 142 young
scientists from 71 countries met for a Conference in
The topics of
the conference were selected based on common interests, independent of
specialties because participants were diverse with different nationalities and
disciplines. The following questions were raised: how to build bridges within
the scientific community; how to build bridges between science and the world?
These questions were discussed in the sessions including international
cooperation, trans-disciplinary collaboration, public engagement, science for
policy, working with the private sector. I was one of the panelists of
trans-disciplinary collaboration session, and had a talk on neural-simulator
and trans-disciplinary cooperation. The insight which I figured out through the
conference is that science for society is to be done within the society. If we
do science within the society from the beginning, we can build bridges within
scientific community, between science and the world.
I started up
a project named ‘Development
of Support Service for Prevention and Recovery from Dementia and Science of
Lethe’ considering
the insight. In order to achieve the goal, we established ‘Fonobono Research
Institute’, a multisector research organization including elderly people
living near the university campus, companies including instrument, welfare, and
urban development companies, local and national governments, medical doctors,
researchers of diverse disciplines related to human science, technology, and
society. The project proposes effective way of science for health and
well-being.