The University of Tokyo
Center for Spatial Information Science
Self Assessment Report

January 1, 2013

Table of Contents
Introduction

2

Chapter 1. Overview of the Center

3

Chapter 2. Organization

6

Chapter 3. Budget, Account and External Funds

9

Chapter 4. Research Activities

12

Chapter 5. International Exchanges

16

Chapter 6. Educational Activities and Staff Training

18

Chapter 7 Current Activities of Joint Usage and Joint Research Center

20

Chapter 8 Future Plan of the Center

221Introduction
Center for Spatial Information Science (CSIS) at the University of Tokyo wasestablished as an internal joint-use facility by the University of Tokyo in 1998,
and since April 2006, as official national joint-use facility, CSIS has offeredsupport for researchers in Spatial Information Science related fields both insideand outside of the university. Moreover, since April 2010, CSIS made a new
beginning as a joint usage/research center, “Spatial Information Science ResearchCenter”. In order to summarize the actual achievements of the CSIS objectively,
we made Self-Assessment Report this time.
We would like to ask for your candid comments and suggestions on the actual
achievements and future activity plans of CSIS.

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Chapter 1. Overview of the Center
Foundation of the center
Establishment of the center goes back to a “recommendation for a national
cartography museum (tentative name)” given at the 104th meeting of the Science
Council of Japan in 1989. In 1996, the “National Geographical Information
Science Research Center Establishment Preparation Committee” was createdalong with a sub organization the “Establishment Preparation Association for the
Geographical Information Science Research Center-at the University of Tokyo”.
A request to establish the center was submitted to the Former Ministry of
Education by various related fields conferences and abroad research centers in
1997, and on April 9, 1998, this center was established as Inter-Joint Research
center at the University of Tokyo. In September, 2004, it was recognized by
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and Council for
Science and Technology as tentative national joint usage center, and in 2005, as
tentative usage center, and in 2006, as official national joint usage center. In
April, 2010, it made a new beginning as “Joint Usage/Research Center” (Spatial
Information Science Research center) aiming to strengthen the foundation ofacademic research and to develop new academic research of our country, andremains in operation now.
Spatial Information Science
Spatial Information Science is a field that develops systematic methods forconstructing, managing, analyzing, integrating, and communicating spatial data (i.
e., natural, social, economic, and cultural data with location information) and thatstudies their applications to other fields. It is a core study field to realize the“construction of knowledge” focusing the Spatial, recapturing the perspective of
spatial position, extent, and transition of the information, of the universe, of
nature, society, economy, and culture.
The typical example of recapturing the existing information from theperspective of spatial position is crime incidence map. By plotting the informationof crime incidence on a map, it can show the characteristics of the areas where
specific types of crimes were concentrated, and it enabled not only the police but
the local citizens to take effective anticrime measures. The expectations of Spatial
Information Science are very high in present society. Today, there is an urgent
issue of how one can find new knowledge and values from tremendous amount ofdata and information, and use them to solve the problems of present society/human beings.

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Goals of establishment of the center
Center for Spatial Information Science contributes the goal achievements asfollows.
1. Creating, developing, and spreading Spatial Information Service
By conducting the advanced research of Spatial Information Science with highcreativity and originality in order to form a base, and also by the integration ofcross-disciplinary study and the interdisciplinary collaboration, Creating,developing, and spreading the new field of study will be conducted.
2. Developing spatial databases for research purposes
Research in Spatial Information Science requires a large amount of spatial
data. However, a great deal of time, labor, and expense is necessary for producing
this data. It is difficult for individual researchers to gather such resources;
moreover, it would result in inefficient reproduction of work. For that purpose,the center will create common spatial databases, develop and implement systems
to be able to use them freely, thus it will support work in many fields that use
spatial databases.
3. Promoting Joint Industry-Government-University research
Research in Spatial Information Science has the character of basic scientificresearch as well as applied and policy-oriented scientific research. Joint research
between industry, the government, and universities is essential to the field. For
example, research on the standardization of spatial data requires joint work withrelated government agencies, while venture research in new industries requires
partnerships with private sector research institutions. The center will provide aspace to foster these kinds of research.

National Joint Research support system
Research in Spatial Information Science requires various spatial data, but mostof the time it is difficult for the private facilities/researchers to gather a large
amount of various spatial data. Therefore the center is providing the systems andthe frameworks as below. Offering spatial databases etc. for research purposes41. Providing spatial data base etc. for research purposes
The center is amassing a large amount of various spatial data for research
purposes which is impossible for private facilities and researchers to gather, andproviding it to joint researchers as the spatial databases for research purposes.
Joint research can be applied, and the evaluation by the evaluation committee isdone electronically as needed, and one can start the research and use the spatial
data for research purposes anytime. At the same time the center is promoting
joint research by disclosing the processing/analysis tool of spatial data etc,
preparation tool of spatial information contents, and systems for e-learning.

2. Research Advisory Board
The center is operating a Research Advisory Board which mainly consistsof nationwide partner universities etc. (21 universities, 1 government agency)
and the researchers representing the various research fields, and conducting
needs survey on recorded data items and contents/forms of provided services,and the evaluation of the services.

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Chapter 2. Organization
Faculty members
As of July 2012, the organizational structure of the center is as follows.
Affiliation of CSIS
Professor (Full time)
Project Professor
 Professor (Joint-Appointment) Associate Professor (Full time) Associate Professor (Joint-Appointment)
Assistant Professor
Project Assistant Professor
Project Researcher(Names of the other members are omitted)
Administrative Staff
Affiliation of domestic Bases
Visiting Professor (partner)
Visiting Associate Professor(partner)
Visiting Researcher (partner)

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Research division
CSIS promotes Spatial Information Science by establishing the following
research divisions, and also it prepares the domestic joint research support systemand conduct joint research activity.
1. Division of Spatial Information Analysis

This division investigates methods for analyzing and modeling the shape,
distribution and spatial relationships of spatial objects. The division also applies
these methods to analyses of human spatial phenomena, such as urban activities
and human behavior, and to natural spatial phenomena, such as landforms,
hydrology and vegetation in order to understand and visualize the spatial
characteristics of these features and to uncover the underlying mechanisms,
which can then be used to predict future phenomena and to analyze spatial
policies.
2. Division of Spatial Information Engineering
By collecting and integrating various data types and information generated in6the real world using spatio-temporal keys, researchers can recreate real world
conditions and the changes that occur therein, generate information with greater
added value, and examine methods for creating services based on that
information. For example, research is being conducted on sophisticated methods
that can be applied to obtaining, integrating, and mining spatial data that
corresponds to the real world, as well as on systems that connect various sensors
dispersed throughout a real space to collect and integrate spatiotemporal data.
3. Spatial Socio-Economic Research
The aim of this division is to promote theoretical and empirical studies into
diverse social and economic phenomena, paying special attention to their spatiotemporal characteristics. The ultimate goal is to understand and develop solutions
to economic problems. Furthermore, we develop new econometric tools foranalyzing spatiotemporal data. The division also constructs spatio-temporal socioeconomic databases that are made available to researchers in a variety of fields.
This will greatly enhance empirical research in the social sciences, in particular,
in urban and regional economics.
4. Division of Joint Usage and ResearchThis division reconstructs scattered spatial data and spatial knowledge tocompile a spatial information base. It also conducts research and development onenvironments that support research and educational activities related to these data
and that use them in sophisticated applications. In addition to designing,
implementing, and validating initiatives directed at the development of researchcommunities, this division studies the environments, methods, and systems
needed for promoting social applications of the spatial information base.
5. Division of Next-generation Management of Infrastructure Data Corporate SponsoredResearch Programs
This division, supported by 8 private companies (as of June, 2011), wasestablished in June, 2011. It aims to bring social experiment for geospatial
information technology and contents to more effectively used in infrastructure ofvarious fields, and technical development and policy proposal, and finallycontribute to educate people engaged in the community. In particular, we set two
important research tasks; “Development of technical basis concerning circulationand high-level usage of geospatial information data” and“Creating community where industry, government, academia can smoothly
exchange geospatial information data”. As it contributes to establish political,
technical and academic foundation of our country, we aim to educate practitioners
and researchers equipped with comprehensive and multidisciplinary ability, who
can plan and implement maintenance, sending/circulation, high-level usage,
research/development of geospatial information.
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Organization Chart

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&KDSWHU.%XGJHW$FFRXQW and ([WHUQDO)XQGVAmount of expenditures of year 2011

The amount of expenditures is 4.56 hundred million yen, and personnel
expenses makes up about 40% of it. 2.88 hundred million yen is received fromoperating cost grant, and external funds cover 37% of total amount ofexpenditures.

Research cost
Research cost per person is about 15 million yen, and most of it isfrom external funds.

*Definition of research fund of (b,c) and each expense is synonymous as inReport on the Survey of Research and Development(Statistics Bureau, Ministry ofInternal Affairs & Communications)*Research fund of (d) is the actual amount distributed as research fund to researchdivisions and researchers etc. among basic expenses of operating cost grants(excluding special expenses among grants, external funds such as service fees etc.,
and operating cost grants)

9Adoption situation of Grant- in-Aid for Scientific Research
There are 18 cases that received Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, which
totals 62 million yen. The number of adoption per person is more than one case.

External Funds
External funds received in 2011 are as follows.
1. Joint research with private sectors etc.

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2. Commissioned research

3. Scholarship Contribution

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Chapter 4. Research Activities
CSIS promotes research activities for the purpose of spreading and developing
Spatial Information Science, and has achieved the results as below.
1. Research Achievements of Articles, Publications etc.
The number of refereed articles published in 2011 was 94, and 52 of them were
published in international academic journals. The number of published articles per
researcher was 6, and thus the center is maintaining high standards. The main
International Journals in which our articles were published were, Annals of
Statistics, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Habitat International, Journal of Urban
Economics, Proceedings of the UBICOMP 2011 Workshop on Ubiquitous
Crowdsourcing, IEEE Pervasive Computing, Proceedings of IEEE PerCom12 etc.
The fields of conferences where the articles were presented have highly wide
range; Economics, Psychology, Geography, Medicine, InformationCommunication Engineering, City planning, Civil Engineering, andEnvironmentology etc., thus it shows the nature of CSIS: interdisciplinary andadvanced research.
Main journals are as follows.

122. Overview of research results
Overview of major research results of the center in 2011 is as follows.

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3. Received Awards
Received Awards of the center in 2011 are as follows.

4. Implementation status of conferences and symposiums
Hosted and Joint hosted by the center in 2011, there were 6 international
conferences/symposiums, 5 seminars, 11 workshops, 1 other, and total of 2930
people participated. The implementation status of symposiums is as follows.

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5. Activity status of Corporate Sponsored Research Program
Corporate sponsored research program of “Next-generation Management ofInfrastructure Data” was established, based on the funds from 10 private
corporations in June 2011, pursuing the following activities; (1) Development oftechnology infrastructure regarding the distribution/higher level usage of
Infrastructure data, (2) Creating the community where industry-governmentacademia can smoothly share infrastructure data. In September, 2011,“Association for Promotion of Infrastructure Geospatial Information Distribution”
based especially on above corporate sponsored research program began operatingwith members of 80 organizations, providing about 40 kinds of stored data anddata from 400,000 observation points, and put out a news release from the
University of Tokyo. Also, it is providing the real estate information data andconsumer behavior data etc., which were owned by private corporations, to joint
research. Furthermore, in 2011, it was entrusted with archive project of survey
data of Earthquake restoration support survey project which was conducted by
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, City Bureau, and by
disclosing the website, it enabled the public to access to the survey data easily.
Targeting the researchers and students in various universities, it is sending out
information regarding joint research via website, and distributing newsletter by email. Also it is conducting public relation activities via meetings where various
researchers gather, such as symposiums with presentation of national joint usage
research (CISIS DAYS), and workshops etc.

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Chapter 5. International Exchanges
Center for Spatial Information Science is actively supporting International
Exchanges in the field of Spatial Information Science. Currently, the center issigning International Agreements on Academic Exchange with 17 organizations
as follows.
Also under foreign visiting professor system, the center is actively accepting
foreign researchers, and is signing MOU with international organizations topromote research exchanges. It also actively invites the foreign researchers whowish to do research presentation in our center, and is hosting seminars. Prof.
Asami participated KAGIS which is the conference of GIS in Korea, presented akeynote speech, and discussed the further exchanges.

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Chapter 6. Educational Activity and Staff Training
Educational Activity
Center for Spatial Information Science (CSIS) is also participating in student
education through the cooperative program system etc. Among the students who
were instructed by CSIS staff in 2011, there were 20 Ph.D. students (13 of themwere foreigners), 44 Master’s students (4 of them were foreigners), and 8
Undergraduate students (1 of them was a foreigner). 18 international students are
accepted from Asia. Also, the number of students who received Ph.D. in 2011
was 15.
Spatial Information Science is conducting the development of versatile method
and theory that are applicable to various academic disciplines in a cross-sectionalmanner, but mostly due to its rather recent field, the user researchers andpractitioners of related fields tend not to have enough knowledge and experiences
about processing and management of spatial data, and it is becoming one of thecauses of impeding the progress of Spatial Information Science. As the basic
knowledge and skills of statistics is providing the grounding in many academic
disciplines, “re-education” of the researchers and practitioners besides educationof the students etc. is also becoming an important issue.
On the other hand, the number of specialists in Spatial Information Science(geography information science) is small, and scattered around except our center.
It is quite difficult to develop educational curriculum and materials targeting thestudents, researchers, and practitioners with various backgrounds. Then, thecenter developed systematical and comprehensive educational curriculum/
contents as “Study of Development of Sustainable Collaborative Web Library
Systems for providing the Standard Curricula of Geographic Information
Science” (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research A, 2005-2007) led by Prof.
Okabe, who was the former Director of the center. And now, ”Development of
Educational Method/Materials of Geographic spatial thinking Based on Standard
Curriculum for Geographic Information Science” (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research A, 2009-2013) is being conducted, led by the current Director, Prof.
Asami, and the center is developing instructional texts and educational materials.

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Staff Training
Center for Spatial Information Science (CSIS), is conducting the training ofyoung researchers including the students as follows.

1. Allocation of research funds to young researchers
For young researchers without any budget such as school funds etc. (Example:
institutional researchers), our center is allocating research funds to their study
proposals, promote voluntary research effort, and support their working
environments at the same time. Also we host research presentations by young
researchers periodically to provide a space for them to receive frank and concrete
advice on research procedures etc.
2. Presentation support of graduate students at international conferences
The center stimulates graduate students to submit the paper to international
symposiums etc. as first authors, and give full support of their travel expenses andparticipation fees as well. The number of articles presented at international
symposiums etc. by our students as the first authors exceed 50 per year, whichmakes up about 25% of the number of articles by the whole center (refereed
journal articles and published articles such as international conference
presentation). The total number of graduate students in the center is 30 to 50,
therefore one student is doing international conference presentations about a little
over one once in two years, on average. Also as a result, there are many cases ofgraduate students receiving encouragement prizes etc, and on average, 4 to 5
cases win awards per year.
3. Financial Aid for Ph.D. Students
Coordinating with partner divisions, we hire Ph.D. students as RA/TA etc.
under GCOE etc. system, and give them financial support.
4. Promotion of paper submission by students and young researchers as firstauthors
When students submit the paper instructed by the staff of Center for Spatial
Information Science, we try as much as possible to make students as first authors
in order to stimulate their continuing motivation towards research. As a result,
there are more than 100 articles of which the students being the first authors, andthe educational effect is quite big.

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Chapter 7. Current Activities of Joint and Usage Research Center
CSIS is conducting and supporting joint research with nationwide universities
as joint usage/research center. Participation framework of joint research isindicated clearly and precisely on our center website (http://www.csis.u-tokyo.ac.
jp/japanese/research_activities/joint-research. html), and we also conduct public
relations activity to nationwide researchers through social media such as Twitterand Facebook. We are distributing presentation guidelines/participation guidanceof CSIS DAYS symposium which is a meeting for presenting joint research
application guidelines and joint research, via ML of related conferences every
year. Also we are distributing the brochure which explains the framework of joint
research through the related conference meetings and direct mail.
In close cooperation with top international researchers of Spatial Information
Science, the center is conducting research exchanges, and it plans many public
seminars. For example, besides above mentioned CSIS DAYS and CSIS
symposiums, the center hosted and held Spatial Thinking and Geographic
Information Science, an international conference with top researchers as operating
committee, in September 2011. The best articles were chosen among the generalarticles submitted to this international conference, and we edited the special issue
in international journal, “Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design”.
Other than this, we are actively contributing to editing activity of international
journals and international academic organizations.
GIS (Geographic Information System) which is the system of processing
geospatial data, and also geospatial data such as residential map and local statistic
data etc. are generally expensive. The center realized the research environment
where academic researchers can use GIS and geospatial data without any cost via
joint research framework. Also the core curriculum of Spatial Information
Science in Japan was organized mainly by the center, and thus it is actively
conducting the development of educational materials and e-Learning system of
Spatial Information Science.

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There are two distinctive attempts made by joint research as follows.
1. Tohoku renovation mapping project (Duration: March 23, 2011-March 31,
2012, Collaboration with: Tohoku University Graduate School of Engineering,
Disaster Control Research Center)
We made a database of building damage caused by the earthquake andtsunami, clarifies the cause of the damage and comprehend the whole damage
picture regarding Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake, occurred on March
11 2011, which attacked the whole Eastern Japan. By using the detailed
residential map, we made building damage map and disclosed in URL below.
http://www.tsunami.civil.tohoku.ac.jp/tohoku2011/mapping_damage.html
2. Establishing an Empirical Basis to Measure and Prevent Crimes against
Children (Duration: April, 2007 to March, 2012, Collaboration with: National
Research Institute of Police Science, Surugadai University, Nihon University,
Meiji Gakuin University, Otemon Gakuin University, Sagami Women’s
University, ESRI Japan Corporation, Placemaking Institute Inc)
By measuring the temporal/spatial distribution of the crime damage of children
by the scale equipped with credibility and validity, study research is conducted toestablish methods to plan/assess effective and sustainable measure adapted to theenvironment situation of the crime and the characteristic of local community/
individual residents. (Representative organization of research: National ResearchInstitute of Police Science).

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Chapter 8. Future Plan of CSIS
Since the establishment of the center in 1998, Spatial Information Science has
been developed greatly, and its technology is being used in various fields insociety as the mobile phones/devices are widely used and location information
service develops. The environment where anyone can send out and use thedetailed spatial information to ubiquitous anytime and anywhere will seem to berealized more in future. Also there are many social issues which cannot be dealt
without spatial information: Effective and reliable maintenance management ofsocial infrastructure facility, Regeneration/Reconstruction of urban space in aging
society, Sophistication/Environmental load reduction of logistics, Prompt action
and advanced restoration of wide-scale disaster such as earthquake and tsunami,
and Dealing with global warming.
In order to respond to such social demands towards Spatial Information
Science, the center needs to lead the research and actively get involved with thesophistication of Spatial Information Science. For example, these are some ofimportant research subjects need to be worked on: Study of integrating
tremendous amount of various spatial data effectively and how to analyze anddeepen the understanding of various aspects of all kinds of transformation in areal world, Study on how to link the results of analysis and obtained content oftransformation with proactive support and implementation of social services,
Study of securing privacy and national security of detailed human behavioral dataand national environmental/institutional data which will be exchanged and used
on a large scale during the process. Therefore, the center set the goal as below,
and summarized the future plan.
Activity goal
1. Enhancement/Expansion of joint research
The center will enhance/expand joint research further, and proceed to deepen/
spread Spatial Information Science and to integrate it with the other academic
fields.
2. Promotion of pioneering research
The center will realize the breakthrough in deepening/spreading of spatial
information by promoting research that is pioneering creating a considerable
ripple effect.

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3. Staff Training
Collaborating with the other organizations, the center conducts training and reeducation of the researchers/practitioners who can effectively conduct to deepen
the Spatial Information Science, to integrate it with various academic fields, andto apply it to the solution of actual social issues.

Future plan
With the above activity goals, we summarize the future plan as practical action
programs.
1. Strengthening/Expansion of Joint research
1a. Enhancement of data contents etc. for Joint research purpose
Besides the traditional data contents that were mainly the regional statistic
data, the center will assess/record the contents of high academic values that are
owned by government/municipality/private corporations, and personal contents
made by researchers. Also the center will conduct the discovering/editing of thepast data etc, and enhance it as time-series archive. It will also provide tool/
knowledge/information that is necessary to proceed the research of Spatial
Information Science such as the concept, understanding of methods, and usabilityof tools.
1b. Establishment of “Joint research producer”
The center will appoint “Joint research producer” who will excavate andpromote the joint research more effectively in order to conduct to excavate thetheme and recruit the members of joint research, collect/record the necessary data,
use control of data etc, and proceed effective outreach of the results, underorganic collaboration.
1c. Further enhancement of collaboration with international researchorganizations
Not only to further enhance/activate the joint research with domestic partner
universities, but also to deepen the collaboration with international researchorganizations, thus it enhances the role of CSIS as international research center.

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2. Promotion of pioneering research
The center will select the academic research areas that are important for
Spatial Information Science and social/academic, launch model joint research
project, and make is as a model case of deepening of advanced Spatial
Information Science. Research themes will be discussed through Research
Advisory Board etc.
About Spatial Information Science itself, important research subjects will be as
follows: 2a. Study of measuring and integrating considerable amount of various
spatial data effectively and how to discover/analyze its changes/transformation ina real world from various aspects, and how to deepen the understanding of its
mechanism through modeling task (2b) What kind of proactive support and social
services can we realize based on the results of analysis on real-world data andacquired changes/transformation information, (2c) How to secure the privacy andnational security of detailed data of spatial human behavior, national
environment/institution, and of high-resolution images etc.
3. Staff training
Other than continuing to systemize, prepare educational materials of, collect/
make archive of the currently proceeding curriculum and support Spatial
Information Science education and training at partner universities, the center will
accept more young researchers and train them through joint research project withcenter faculties, collaborating with domestic partner universities and overseas
partners.
4. Reassessment of research division structure
The center will reassess research division structure in order to conduct theabove actions effectively and efficiently.

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