SciREX Summer Camp 2018
STI and Society in 2030
3-Day Challenge for Policymaking
The SciREX Summer Camp 2018 took place at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) for
3 days from August 28-30, 2018. Commencing in 2012, this annual event was the 7th of its kind to havediscussions under the theme of “Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) and Society in 2030.”
Until the 6th, the event normally allowed students’ participation from the SciREX core universities (GRIPS,
the University of Tokyo, Hitotsubashi University, Kyoto University, Osaka University and Kyushu University),
but the 7th for the first time allowed the participation of students from non-SciREX core universities. The
2018 version was a success by being joined by a record 157 members, including 56 students, 54 faculty
members, 16 government officials, and 31 others including speakers from other organizations.

Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Lectures:Prof. Tateo Arimoto, SciREX Deputy Director, welcomed the students. He started his opening remarks by pointing out
the problems surrounding the S&T policies in that scientific methodology and values have been changing so rapidly thatthe relationship between science and society, or science and policy are not working well. He said that it is critical to findthe methodology and system that solve these issues and also important is to train young people to work out onthem. Mr. Keita Nakazawa from the Ministry of Education, S&T talked about what SciREX program is. These talks
ensured the students that they were going to experience “evidence-based policymaking.” (Photo 1)

Photo 1 left: Prof. Tateo Arimoto talks about Evidence-based policymaking.
Photo 1 right: Mr. Keita Nakazawa talks about what SciREX program is.

The above talks were followed by a panel discussion on “auto driving,” focusing on how S&T policies are applied to thistechnology (photo 2).

Photo 2: Prof. Yasuhiro Akagi, Nagoya University’s Institute ofInnovation for Future Society; Ms. Yuka Nakagawa, Lawyer,Nakagawa Law Office; Mr. Katsuya Abe, ITS Promotion Office,Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Traffic
Management Division; Prof. Takayuki Morikawa, Nagoya
University’s Institute of Innovation for Future Society discuss
about “auto driving” with Prof. Tateo Arioto, SciREX DeputyDirector, the commentator

Discussions in 9 groups:
The students began discussions in 9 groups under the 9 sub-themes of the event as follows:

The “Safety of Children” group listened to Mr. Kudo of the Ministry of Education who talked about “the currentstatus and countermeasures for child abuse” and also Dr. Yuko Shiraishi of RIKEN’s Brain Science Institute (BSI) who
talked about “child care and brain.” The “Energy” group played an energy-source selection game. Each student had arole of government, environmental NPO, consumption body, manufacturing association, and each insisted whichenergy source should be selected. As it is not possible to establish a power plant without consensus within the group,
each student was convinced of the difficulties of selecting one power source. The “S&T Basic Plan” group consistedof 10 members, 6 students (3 Japanese national and 3 non-Japanese), 1 facilitator, 2 supporting members, and 1
incumbent administrative advisor. The expertise of the students was in variety from public policy and management tochemistry and biology. Each wrote the most critical issues s/hethinks in the current S&T policies on a piece of paper and laid themon a graph with horizontal line of years and society and basic
research on the vertical line (Photo 3). They also made a list of“which would remain as challenges 10 years later?,” “What are thenew challenges 10 years later?,” and “what kind of data andevidence are used now?” all of which they decided to ask at theCabinet Office where they would visit on the following day.
Photo 3: S&T Basic Plan group: Each posted “the challenges in the S&T policies in Japan” to make a graph with the verticalline of society and basic research and horizontal of years. The pieces of paper includes: crisis of basic research, decreasing
number of working population, widening gap in society, crisis of academic societies.

Wednesday, August 29
To show an example of the group activities, the S&T Basic Plan group activities follow:

Site Visit to the Cabinet Office where the STI Basic Plans are designed
The “STI Basic Plan” is the Japanese 5-year STI policies that commenced in 1996. The current 50-paged 5th Plan describes
the STI policies for Japan to pursue from 2015-2020. The goal of the “STI Basic Plan” group was to lay evidences to design
the 8th Plan that will begin in 10 years (2030-2035).
The group visited Prof. Hitoraka Ueyama, a full-time member of the Council of Science, Technology and Innovation at theCabinet Office (Photo 4). Prof. Ueyama said that the STI Plan was designed to meet the pressures from foreign countries,including the United States, to make more efforts to prioritize basic research, but the focus has changed since then toplace importance on creating innovation. He also said that the discussions on the 6th Plan had just begun and nodiscussions had ever been made for the 8th Plan. The students were shocked to hear that no discussions have started for a
decade-later plan, and at the same time were assured of the big challenge they were facing.
Prof. Ueyama pointed that Japanese companies would further be globalized after 2020 just like the big companies havealready done so. His words made the students have a much broader view when thinking of Japan in 10 years.
Photo 4: The “Basic STI Plan” group students with Prof. Hirotaka
Ueyama at the cabinet Office

Discussions with Dr. Mitsuru Kishimoto of RIKEN
After returning to GRIPS, the group listened to the lecture by Dr.
Mitsuru Kishimoto, RIKEN, on “RIKEN’s History and Future” and“the role of RIKEN’s Strategy Office” (Photos 5). RIKEN waslaunched in 1917 to contribute to the development of Japaneseindustries. RIKEN then changed its organizational status flexibly tomeet the era and it is now a corporation. Such flexibility is an important factor for the S&T Basic Plan group to face incoming up with the 6th plan. In 1986 RIKEN’s organization and human resources were advised to be more inflexible, which
made them establish an international frontier research system and enabled them toaccept human resources from outside and establish 7 divisions for visiting researchers.
This was innovative in those days. RIKEN has thus been flexibly getting along with theera, but Dr. Kishimoto said that RIKEN’s role is now changing, as Japan is shifting its
priority from basic research to theme-oriented research.

Photos 5: Discussions with Dr. Mitsuru Kishimoto, RIKEN

To cope with this change, RIKEN launched a “Future Strategy Office” to design a society in a century, besides the midterm research plan they had been carrying. The Office nurtures “experts who have dreams” with a bird’s-eye view ofthe world. They are expected to match the “future societal issues” and “future technologies” and come up with
“future societal vision.” They first set up “the image they would like to be,” discuss how to reach it, and write ascenario to realize it. The group was impressed to hear that it is an image as long as 100 years later. As it should bebased on “becoming happy with S&T,” the scenario should not be unrealistic. Thus, Dr. Kishimoto said that the RIKEN
researchers recognize the value and importance of their research and the managers support the scenario.Then, the students asked Dr. Kishimoto to go through the S&T policy items they drafted on pieces of papers theprevious day, and asked for his advice. He pointed out that the students should think about scenarios on what will begoing on in 10 years, or what they would like to do in 10 years, and then what evidence is needed. It was not easy toimagine what will be going on a decade later; and also it was not easy to wrap up each member’s “what s/he would
like to do in 10 years.” Thus, the six members were stuck and had no idea as to how to proceed.
Under the above circumstances, the group went into the interim report presentation. Based on the themes the members
wrote on the pieces of paper at the beginning (Photo 3), the group added the points they gained through hearings, andthen used Dr. Jiro Kawakita’s KJ method. The group presented that they would deepen the discussions among themembers based on the data obtained through these three stages and show the result at the final presentation thefollowing date.
The comments from the faculty members in the audience included “you say ‘evidence,’ but what do you mean by‘evidence?’,” “how about making a scenario toward 2030?,” “how about making a critical thinking like whether the‘assumption is correct?’,” and “how about being more bold as the theme is so big?” As they were aware that there would
not be enough time to make a scenario toward 2030 and find the evidence in realizing the goal, they all agreed to try to
make as much as lively discussions as possible among them and would see what they can report at the final presentation.

Photos 6：Interim report presentations (from left to right):

Data, University, Medicine, Energy groups

Thursday, August 30, 2018
Each group started the last-minute discussions at 09:00. Even the “S&T Basic Plan” group members who on theprevious day had no idea on how to wrap up their opinions had finished their discussions by midnight, and wastalking about how they would present their discussion result.
At 13:00 the “Basic S&T Plan” group made the final presentation (photo 7). They reported that their discussion points
could be summarized as “Globalization,” “the Relationship between University, Industry and Citizen,” and “Definitionof Research” based on their opinions and hearings. Also, they came up with two scenarios: one with fastdevelopment of globalization and another with moderate development of globalization. The former scenario
included how to deal with the students from abroad and how to design English language education at Japaneseschools. The latter included how to train young Japanese researchers in the era of declining birth rate and increasing
number of elderly people, and how to set up the countermeasures for Japan not to be left behind the world. The factthat there are two scenarios or two policies implies that it is possible to establish a wrong policy depending on how
we read the globalization speed.

The group’s presentation concluded by raising a question to the audience: while the scenario is discussed based on aprerequisite that “the research ability should keep its level as it is,” would the research ability as of today be asimportant in 2030 as it is now, or a new definition of research be required in 2030?
Prof. Takayuki Hayashi, facilitator of the “S&T Basic Plan” group, commented that he could see the group was discussing
this way and that for the past three days, but tried not to intervene the discussions. He said that they made an excellentpresentation. The S&T Basic Plan is tremendously important policy that it is not easy to grasp what the issues are, which
ones are most important and what are the relationships between the issues. In such a short period of time and withpeople of such diverse backgrounds, it must have been very difficult to make discussions. However, this is actually what ishappening at the Cabinet Office. He commended the good work of all the members of the group.
The members of the group said: “It was hard to wrap up the discussions, after talking with people with a variety ofbackground on a fixed theme,” “Having science background, I do not have an opportunity to think about policies. This wasa valuable experience,” and “I learned that what I believe right could not be interpreted as right in a different field. I do notwant to compromise, but was able to broaden my view.” Also, a student from a non-SciREX core university said that s/hemajors in science communication, but had hard time for the past three days. The good thing was that s/he could find somewho have similar opinions with him/her and establish a network.

Photos 7: Final presentations
The BEST PRIZE was given to the University group that challenged the image of Japanese universities and demand foruniversities as of 2030 (Photo 8). They predicted that the number of 18-years old will decrease in 2030; higher skills arerequired for human beings because of the development of technologies like AI; and what are required for universities
under such circumstances. They concluded that universities should have a flexible system that accepts foreign students
and workers, and be a place that provide professional skills.
To be noted is that the group was very proactive in coming up with evidences by actually making a survey to the students
attending the summer camp to know what the students from abroad and workers are expecting for universities, inaddition to using the already-available data like the simulation of the numbers of 18-year olds in the future and thenumber of universities. The members said, “Having three students from abroad made us to discuss the issue more
broadly,” “We were told to discuss based on evidence, but did not know where to find the evidence,” “The diversity of theopinions among the members made it difficult to wrap up, but it turned out to work well to have a good conclusion,” and“I learned a lot about Japanese systems.”

Best Prize: University GroupBest Presentation Prize & Faculty Prize

Bureaucrat Prize: Space GroupELSI Group

Faculty Prize: Data Group

Student Prize: SDG Group
Photos 8: Prizes

Overall, the students learned thedifficulties in making policies and had avaluable experience of broadening theirviews through discussions.

Photo 9: All on GRIPS Stairways