Proposal
Towards the Establishment of an
Informatical Foundation of Services
to Realize Innovation

February 23, 2009
Service Innovation Research Initiative
Division of University Corporate Relations
University of Tokyo

The present proposal, “Towards the Establishment of an Informatical Foundation ofServices to Realize Innovation,” was formulated based on discussions held under theService Innovation Research Initiative of the Division of University Corporate
Relations, the University of Tokyo, and is released to the public, summarizing measuresfor promoting research and development through industry-academia collaboration. In
addition to this proposal, another report of this Research Initiative is also released to the
public as “Towards Innovation through the Scientific Study of Services.”**

http://www.ducr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/service-innovation/index.html

Proposal
Towards the Establishment of an Informatical Foundationof Services to Realize Innovation
For over two-and-a-half years, commencing October 2006, discussions have been held
under the Service Innovation Research Initiative in a collaboration between industry andacademia with an eye towards realizing innovation through the establishment of aperspective based on Scientific Study of Services. While the range of general services isbroad and diverse, we have focused the scope of our discussions on those services thatare provided in an information society, where most activities of people andorganizations are directly or indirectly dependent on information systems andinformation technology, and have thereby studied specific and effective measures for
conducting research and development in this area.
Based on the results of these discussions, we would like to make the following
proposal on how research and development should be promoted.

Details of the Proposal
In order to establish a scientific methodology for studying services, one of our current
approaches to innovation will be to promote research limited to services in an
information society, where most activities of people and organizations are dependent on
information technology. In this approach, at the core of the research is the developmentof methods, such as investigation/measurement, analysis/visualization, modeling/prediction, design/optimization, design/evaluation technology, and system construction
technology, aiming at the establishment of an Informatical Foundation of Services.
From this perspective, methodologies can be systemized to identify and analyze various
phenomena concerning services in an information society towards realizing the mostsuitable systems. For this purpose, it is desired to research and develop specific themes
through industry-academia collaboration.
In order to establish a scientific methodology concerning services, research should be1

conducted through the integration of academic fields based on the knowledge available
in existing fields. The following research areas will have to be established to promote
this type of integration. These are the areas (1) to (4) detailed in “Research and Study
Report on Emerging/Integrated Fields (December 2008)” formulated jointly by theCenter for Research and Development Strategy, Japan Science and Technology Agency(JST/CRDS), and Basic and Generic Research Division, Research Promotion Bureau,
Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. There will also
be an additional area (5):(1) Understanding human psychology and behavior(2) Handling large amounts of data
(3) Overcoming the complexity of systems(4) Dealing with evolution/variation(5) Consensus formation/system design
The names of these research areas may give us the impression that these areas are not
only related to services but also encompass other fields. In this proposal however, theconcept of each research area is defined clearly in terms of services and the developmentof related methods.
This type of research is mainly conducted at research institutions, such as universities,
and the research assets available there in existing fields should be fully utilized. For
example, the University of Tokyo has accumulated abundant essential technology thatcan be utilized as a foundation for service innovation. It has also created the “Service
Innovation Research Collaboration Unit of the University of Tokyo” and thereby
established a system to promote research that integrates a number of areas. A steady andpromising approach to research will be to utilize these research assets and collaboration
systems and establish the integrated research areas shown above to systemize existing
technology, as well as to research and develop essential new technologies, and thereby
construct an informatical foundation of services. In each research area, practicalresearch should be promoted through the development of methods required by service
providers to resolve specific issues, so that the informatical foundation of services canwork effectively. At the same time, through such research, human resources that cantake the initiative in service innovation should also be nurtured. Furthermore, we hopethat if the achievements of this research can be recognized as a discipline through thegeneralization of results and the promotion of systemization of methodologies
2

concerning services, a new curriculum that may be called either Service Informatics orServices (in the broader sense) will be formed and positioned as a new discipline to bepassed on to the next generation.
In order to generate innovation through the establishment of services for ordinary
people in society based on research conducted at universities and other institutions,service providers must first understand the users’ perspective and promote research anddevelopment to resolve related issues. While the specific issues to be resolved inindustrial and other fields are diverse and vary depending upon the time and situation,such issues will include the following:a. Integration of services
b. Transition of manufacturing into a service-oriented economy
c. Higher efficiency in services
d. Transition of information technology into a service-oriented economye. Transition towards online administration services
In working to understand and resolve these issues, the knowledge and experience ofservice providers, as well as developers of information systems that realize services
based upon information technology will be essential. It is therefore important that service
providers/developers and researchers of scientific methodologies share an approach tothese issues, understand the relevant research and development policies, and cooperatewith each other, utilizing the available means towards creating an informaticalfoundation of services and engendering steady innovation. From the perspective ofdeepening this type of collaboration, research and development should be promoted
through industry-academia cooperation.
Taking these points into consideration, we would like to propose that, in order toestablish an informatical foundation of services toward innovation, research anddevelopment should be conducted from a viewpoint of five to ten years, based on
industry-academia collaboration organized in a manner to integrate a variety of fields.

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Research ofServiceInnovation through Industry-Academia Collaboration

4

Commentary
Towards the Establishment of an Informatical Foundation of Services
What do we have to do for the services in an advanced information society in order tocomprehensively understand the mechanism of society to bring about innovation and activate
society? What science and technology can do to respond to this challenge and contribute tosociety will be to establish a scientific methodology for providing effective and highly reliable
services to bring affluence to society in the truest sense. Now that society is becoming
increasingly complex, the establishment of a scientific methodology is required in various fields.
It is also an urgent issue to establish a methodology for services that have a significant impact on
industry and society. Described in the following is how research of Scientific Study of Services
should be promoted from these perspectives.

Scientific Methodology to Realize Innovation
In many cases, innovation in society is only recognized as having occurred when reflecting on
the past. How can such innovation be brought about? Has the best mechanism for generating
innovation been found? A number of innovations have been analyzed and research to find themost appropriate mechanism has already started. Such research has found that, in many cases,
innovation is brought about in the process where a business plan has generally originated fromneeds and the business has started utilizing the necessary intellectual assets. On the other hand,
it is considered difficult to generate innovation when a business has started based ontechnological seeds purely in a manner to utilize such seeds in whatever way possible. In short,the former case implies activities in society and industry, while the latter case activities at
research institutions, such as universities.
Even if an approach to innovation is found, no innovation will occur without a scientificmethodology. However, a scientific methodology by itself cannot contribute to innovation. As
long as services are required in society and deemed valuable, a scientific methodology fordeveloping services has itself academic significance and is expected to become fully utilized torealize innovation. This process will help create services that are widely appreciated in society
and should promote the spread of such services, and eventually innovation in services will berecognized to have occurred in the true sense. A method discovered by chance or dependent on
experience or intuition may bring temporary success but such a method cannot be expected to5take root in society with continuing and sustainable achievements.
In this context, in order to generate innovation in services, the first step is to establish, as acommon foundation, a scientific methodology that can be widely utilized. When the provisionof new services is planned, this common foundation can be used as a means to select amethodology for enacting the plan in order to realize specific services, and this common
foundation may thereby become in turn a foundation that takes root within the wider society tobring about innovation. The significance of Scientific Study of Services lies in maturing this kindof common foundation as an intellectual asset. In other words, for innovation in services, one
issue is to aim to establish a scientific methodology relating to services, something that has notbeen achieved so far.

From Manufacturing to Services
It is said that, in recent years, services account for over 70% of the gross domestic product(GDP) in advanced countries. Japan is no exception. The classification of industries into
primary industries (agriculture and forestry), secondary industries (manufacturing), and theremainder, or tertiary industries, is based on the industrial structure of the 1930s, a century afterfactory-based machinery industries were born in the 18–19th century. The invention of thesteam engine, and engineering as a scientific methodology supporting manufacturing on thebasis of this invention indeed brought about the industrial revolution. There are various kinds ofservices as tertiary industries, which were simply defined as “the rest” when industrial fields
were classified as mentioned above. Nowadays, many kinds of services are characterized bytheir integration of information and knowledge. Such services include distribution of goods,
transportation, accommodation, leisure, entertainment, finance, education, information, medicalcare, rental business, and outsourcing.
The increase in the ratio of industries involved in services to total industries indicates therelative decrease in the role of manufacturing. The same phenomenon can be also observed in
the changes in the engineering field that supported manufacturing. The high-growth period inJapan from the mid-1950s to the beginning of the 1970s was a prosperous period for secondary
industries, and research areas were centered on manufacturing. However, the engineering field
has subsequently spread from industrial production to peripheral areas. It is now no longer
uncommon for those who have studied engineering to be engaged in the services area. Thisimplies that the logical thinking and design skills developed by education related to theengineering field are also required in the field of services. However, from the perspective of the6

productivity and quality assurance established in manufacturing, as well as the technology
supporting them, the situation in services as an industry is completely different in both quantityand quality from that of manufacturing, and still remain far from adequate. Consequently, while
the buds of the methodologies required in fields related to services are observed even in theengineering field, the intellectual foundation available is still inadequate.

Innovation of the Information Revolution
To think of a common foundation where a newly developed technology develops into an
intellectual asset that bring about innovation, the innovations of the information revolution we
have experienced will be a good reference. It happened to be in the 1930s, when industrial
classifications were first used, that discussions were held on computability, which may be
regarded as the basic theory of computation. Although it was proved that there are problems in
the world that cannot be solved merely by computation, subsequently-appeared computers wereundoubtedly one of the source of the information revolution which changed society through thereinforcement of human intellectual ability.
With the emergence of usable computers in the 1960s, information processing began to be
carried out everywhere, having a significant impact on social infrastructure, together with thedevelopment of information communications. While such developments in computers andinformation communications were included in the spreading engineering field, Computer Science
having its own discipline as science and engineering for computation has matured, showing theprocess where innovation was brought about in both industrial and social aspects as a result of
the establishment of the intellectual foundation of a reliable scientific methodology. Throughcollaboration and integration with peripheral areas, this field is now positioned as Information
Science and Technology, or Computer Science in the broad sense of the term. As mentioned
above, the change in engineering that supported manufacturing and the development of theinformation science and technology that supports the information society, suggest thecharacteristics of the intellectual foundation needed to bring about innovation in services.

Necessity of a Methodology for the Scientific Study of Services
As described above, the situation in industry and the achievements of science in the 1930s have
had a range of impacts on research in the engineering and the information science andtechnology fields until today, 80 years later. While the present industrial structure implies that thesource for creating affluent lives in a highly advanced society lies in services, it is a matter of7

course that a methodology for “scientific study of services” is required to respond to the
expectation for the provision of better services. Attempts have been also made to date to apply
methods used in engineering and the information science and technology fields to mattersconcerning services. As is usually the case with any particular field, no systematic discipline
emerges all of a sudden out of nothing. In this sense, a core concept or method must already be inexistence. Needless to say, the existing knowledge and methods in engineering and theinformation science and technology fields alone are inadequate and the knowledge in the fields
of science related to human behavior and social systems must also play an essential part. Now
that the necessity of the scientific study of services is increasingly recognized, such as in thesocial background for pursuing an affluent life through services, the situation of an industry
where the productivity, reliability, and creativity of services are required, and the interest ofacademia in establishing a scientific foundation, the pursuit of methodologies by systemizing thedefinition of concepts, and the methods that are already being nurtured, will together be regarded
as a science of the 21st century for society.

Toward the Establishment of a Methodology for the Scientific Study of Services
In order to establish a scientific methodology for services, it would be effective to learn fromthe knowledge of people that have created and developed new methodologies, while taking thecharacteristics of the relevant services into consideration. Natural science has an approach similar
to quantitative science based upon observation, where a phenomenon is first qualitatively
understood, and this is followed by analysis, where the observed results are quantitatively
handled. In the case of services, the characteristics of the relevant services should be understood
through qualitative observations and the observed results then quantitatively analyzed to realize
services as a system based on the analyzed results. As the first step to pursue this type of
methodology, it would be more appropriate to focus on the information society, where theactivities of people and organizations are dependent on information technology, than to address
services in general. One methodology obtained in the area of information society, which islimited but clear, could be the Informatical Foundation of Services,* which is an abstraction of
the essence of the concept and methods common to individual services that are realized as asystem. Realization of services by applying the methods developed upon this foundation toindividual matters will give clear grounds for providing better services, as well as demonstrate*

The term “Informatical Foundation” is used as corresponding to “Mathematical Foundation.”8the validity of the methodology. This kind of methodology is, through its embodiment, expected
not only to be effective for the information society but also to become a foundation for handlinga wider range of services.

From the Informatical Foundation of Services to Service Informatics
To deploy methodologies concerning services in the information society, it is desirable toestablish a research area where individual matters are first abstracted. This is the same as inphysics, where the motion of objects and the structure of materials are established as a study area.
Now, typical issues concerning services include the efficient provision of services, the transitionin manufacturing towards a service-oriented economy, and measures for expanding
administration services. The research areas required to resolve these issues will include dealing
with evolution/variation, handling large amounts of data, overcoming the complexity of systems,
understanding human psychology and behavior, and designing social systems/administration
systems. These are examples of research areas to systemize investigation/measurement,
analysis/visualization, modeling /prediction, design/optimization, design/evaluation technology,
system construction technology, etc., for services in respective areas. Needless to say, the issues
to be resolved here are not limited to these but other issues may emerge anew within the
research process. Nevertheless, all of these issues are keys for promoting integrated research inits true sense based on knowledge in existing academic fields, including, notably, engineeringand information science and technology, as well as social science, with these individual fields
mutually stimulating each other. Included among them are also visualization, optimization, andsimulation, which have developed as methodologies that can be applied to various objects andphenomena in engineering and in the information science and technology fields. However,
sufficient studies have yet to be conducted on the issues concerning people and society, which
are characteristic of services, and the means to resolve them. Such issues include indicesconcerning human sensitivity and behavior, mechanisms for decision-making in society, andco-creation by multiple parties from different perspectives. As mentioned earlier, it is clearlynecessary to conduct research integrating different fields for the scientific study of services.
However, the achievements of integration will not be realized until individual concepts andmethods are integrated into a methodology based on the informatical foundation of services andsuch methodology is recognized as Service Informatics or Services in the broadest sense.

9Research and Development through Industry-Academia Collaboration via an Informatical
Foundation of Services
It is said that innovation usually originates from needs, and is brought about through theutilization of the necessary intellectual assets. In research and development throughindustry-academia collaboration, the requirement of service providers for a method to resolve
the issues they face can be adopted as an issue for integrated research at institutions such asuniversities. The methods or methodologies developed by researchers should be organized as an
informatical foundation of services, which can then be used as a tool by the service providers. In
this manner, achievements in the area of integrated research may be used via the informaticalfoundation to resolve issues concerning the provision of services, and thereby promote service
innovation originating from actual needs. In the picture, shown below, are specific examples of
the allocation of roles to industry and academia in the research and development of services andapproaches to resolving issues through industry-academia collaboration.
In order for service providers to understand the whole scene from a long-term perspective,
methods used in engineering or information science and technology are inadequate—even forthe provision of services by information technology. It is therefore essential to resolve issues
through a number of research areas concerning human organization, behavior, and mentality,
such as the fields of sociology and psychology. However, from a realistic standpoint ofindustries engaging in services, it is impossible to continue research and development in all ofthese areas, and research and development has to be limited to the most relevant areas bymonitoring the changes in markets and customers and changes in the environment. In particular,
it is difficult to promote research and development in fields where long-term research is
required and in fields other than a specialty area. On the other hand, such realistic issues
concerning services will naturally promote the formation of integrated areas to deal with issues
that cannot be resolved by the existing areas of academic research in universities and otherinstitutions, which will in turn lead to the development of a new discipline. In pursuit ofsolutions and sharing issues between industry and academia, continual collaboration in
integrated areas of multi-faceted research will be effectively realized.
Collaborations have always occurred between industries and universities when necessary. In
the case of collaboration in the service field, however, many cases require collaboration in
integrated areas, and needs in the targeted service field can fluctuate significantly. Further, theresearch and development system is required to be directly linked to the provision of services tocustomers. These factors will require an implementation method and a system that are different

10from those in conventional industry-academia collaboration. In other words, due to the fluidityof services, it is predicted that priority issues in the research area and research of necessary
elemental technology may continually change, and even if broad service fields and areas are
established from a long-term perspective, an organization and a methodology for appropriate
management of the fluidity of research areas will be required, for example, to alter the subjectof research to an appropriate research element in accordance with the change in service fields.
In addition, because of the simultaneity of services, the location where research is conductedshould be closely related to the provision of services. Therefore, it is also expected to benecessary to establish a system to promote research that takes into account the impact on thecollaborating company, the management of customer information, and so forth.
As for research concerning public administration services, it is difficult to predict short-term
profits, making it hard for a single company to conduct the necessary research. Since suchservices also involve a way of consensus building and the design of the social system, it isindispensable to collaborate with not only industry or academia but also with the government, amajor services provider. In this type of services, since it is necessary to give consideration to not
only value for individual users but also value for the whole of society, ability and knowledge inengineering and the information science and technology fields that are involved in systemconstruction, as well as in humanities and social sciences, will be required. Thus, integrated
research areas are also formed in this case. Through industry-academia collaboration, thestrength of universities in academic and foundational technologies, and the strength ofcompanies in practical experience at workplaces and in application technology are expected to
be integrated in order to promote research toward the resolution of issues in the area of public
administration services.

We believe that the pursuit of an informatical foundation of services to realize innovation
proposed here, and promoting research and development to establish such a foundation, will
mark a major contribution by science and technology to realizing an affluent society throughservice development.

11

Members of Service Innovation Research Initiative, University of Tokyo
ChairmanProfessor, School of Information Science and Technology,
University of Tokyo

Masato Takeichi

Vice-Chairman

Professor, Research into Artifacts, Center for Engineering,
University of Tokyo

Kanji Ueda

Members

Professor, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo

Tamio Arai

(Academia)

Professor, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo

Atsuyuki Okabe

Professor, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo

Kazuo Furuta

Professor, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo

Hideaki Miyata

Professor, School of Humanities and Sociology,
University of Tokyo

Kenichi Ikeda

Professor, School of Arts and Sciences,
University of Tokyo

Kazunori Yamaguchi

Professor, School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo

Hiroyuki Yamato

Professor, School of Information Science and Technology,
University of Tokyo

Kokichi Sugihara

Professor, School of Information Science and Technology,
University of Tokyo

Kazuo Murota

Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies,
University of Tokyo

Osamu Sudo

Professor, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology,
University of Tokyo
Takashi Nanya
Members

Director, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.

(Industry)

Vice President, Software Business Promotion Unit, NEC Corporation
Yutaka Kasahara
Senior Manager, Tokyo Research Laboratory, IBM Japan Ltd.

Sanya Uehara

Kazuyoshi Hidaka

Senior Manager, Systems Development Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd.

Yasuharu Namba

Advisor

Project Professor (Intellectual Asset-Based Management),
University of Tokyo

Secretariat

Proprius21 Program Officer, University Corporate Relations,
University of Tokyo

Yukio Ebino

Proprius21 Program Officer, University Corporate Relations,
University of Tokyo

Hiroshi Iiyama

Kenichiro Senoo

UCR Service Innovation Research Initiative

Collaborative Research Development,
Division of University Corporate Relations
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033

For inquiries, visit the following URL of the Division of University Corporate Relations.
Division of University Corporate Relations http://www.ducr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
UCR Service Innovation Research Initiative
http://www.ducr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/service-innovation/index.html