no 2021-1
March 2021

Established in 2009 within the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS),
the Fondation France-Japon has developed public and private partnerships to promote scholarly exchange
in social sciences and humanities between Europe and Asia for more than ten years.

NEWSLaunch of the New Research
Project, “Care-Led Innovation: theCase of Elderly Care in France andin Japan”
Rising life expectancy and ageing populations area major challenge for our societies. A key issue iscare for elderly people who are experiencing a lossof autonomy. While the contribution of technology inthis field (especially robotics, artificial intelligence,and information and communication technology)
is recognised as a solution, this contribution isalso defined by certain limitations, now partlyrevealed by the COVID-19 crisis. Our hypothesisis that this is a structural problem related to thepartial disconnect between social needs andtechnological solutions, itself tied to the dominantparadigm of innovation. Our project’s objective is todevelop an alternative concept called care-driveninnovation. Thanks to a multidisciplinary FrenchJapanese collaboration, we will thus analyse thepolicies and practices that put well-being at thecentre of innovation.
This complex issue is the subject of a new project
launched by FFJ, in collaboration with several
French and Japanese research centres, as wellas associations involved in the care sector.

Creation of the International Team,“Capitalism, Technology, Society,and Health”
FFJ has just been selected for the “TriennialInternational Team” funding scheme, following
a call for applications launched by the École deshautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS).
Within the framework of a partnership with CCJ(China, Korea, Japan centre), CERMES3 (Centrefor research on medicine, science, health, mental
health, and society), CAK (Alexandre-Koyrécentre), the University of Tokyo and Seoul National
University, some twenty researchers from Europeand Asia will collaborate for a period of three years

on a joint scientific issue. The Eurasian team“Capitalism, Technology, Society, and Health”
which includes FFJ, will meet at least once a year
on the EHESS premises.
The overall objective of the project is to revisit
the relationship between technology andsociety, focussing specifically on the issue ofhealth. This approach is in line with previous
FFJ research programmes, the findings of whichwere compiled in the 2019 publication Innovation
beyond Technology – Science for Society andInterdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Sébastien
Lechevalier (FFJ-EHESS), with contributions from
Jean-Paul Gaudillière (CERMES 3), as well as
13 other Japanese and French colleagues who
sought to criticise and rethink the concept ofinnovation, as well as the relationship between
technology and society in the fields of environmentand health. This new team wishes to delve evenfurther by focussing on health issues, but with anovel approach that goes beyond the traditionallysegmented disciplinary approaches to this topic
such as economics (of health), sociology (ofhealth), anthropology (of health), or history (ofmedicine and health).
The EHESS programme will allow FFJ to establish
a temporary international laboratory for thesuccessful completion of this project, which isscheduled to start next spring.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE
News• Care-Led Innovation:
the Case of Elderly Care in
France and in Japan• International Team,"Capitalism, Technology,Society, and Health"
Focus• The Transformation ofWork in Japan
Testimonial• French-German Dialogueon Japan
Cercle de la FFJ• Masayo Fujimoto• Ryo Kambayashi
A look back at• The Innovation Beyond
Technology Round TableFOCUSThe Transformation of Work in Japan

Well-being in the workplace
Despite the differences between these two countries, comparative
analyses of France and Japan are both enriching and necessary. Oneissue where each country could learn from the other, namely well-being
at work and how it has evolved, was the focus of a research project
carried out by the Fondation France-Japon in 2018 and 2019. The
project’s premise was as follows: in both societies, the transformationof the working world since the 1990s has been accompanied by adecline in well-being within companies, which has also had an impact
on productivity. The project’s objective was to understand the origins of
this phenomenon and to look at what solutions were proposed in Japan.

The research team of the project © FFJ, 2018

The first result of this project was the publication of a research report inNovember 2018. A team led by Sébastien Lechevalier and composedof young researchers in economics and sociology at EHESS carriedout an analysis of research conducted in Japan on this issue. The firstpart of the report examines the major changes in the Japanese labour
market since the 1990s (lower average wages, increase of non-regular
employment, job insecurity for young people, women and older workers)
and how these changes affect well-being at work. The second part
details the response of both government and businesses, through theregulation of working hours, various initiatives for improving work-lifebalance, and the promotion of women, culminating in the Working Style
Reform Law (hatarakikata kaikaku) in 2018. Subsequent to this report,
FFJ co-organized a workshop with JILPT on March 15, 2019 in Tokyo.

Teleworking © OregonDOT, 2020

When it is not culture or history that attract attention, it is often work andbusiness that put Japan in the limelight. In the past, it was the economic
success of its large corporations that sparked a series of studies on the“Japanese model”. Today, focus has shifted more towards how work
is changing and the challenges that accompany this transformation.
This issue is especially important because the challenges Japan has
been facing for the past two decades are a preview of what France will
now have to face: the issue of older workers in the context of an aging
population, the inequalities caused by diversifying forms of employment,
as Uber-type digital platforms develop, or the difficulties of how to manage
employees’ working hours at a time when teleworking is becoming
widespread due to the global pandemic.

The impact of new technologies on productivity andemployment
Artificial intelligence (AI), which generates both an expectation of increased
productivity and concern about massive job destruction, is bringing thefocus back on analysing the relationship between technological innovationand employment. Indeed, some predict that its impact on employment
could surpass anything that has been analysed so far. However, if wedefine AI as “the set of theories and techniques used to build machines
capable of simulating intelligence”, there is a clear continuity withrobotics. Lessons can therefore be drawn from previous cases where
the introduction of new technologies led to forms of automation that canprovide nuance to the catastrophic projection of massive job destruction.
There is, nevertheless, a new dimension: the very nature of work could
be revolutionized by, for example, the emergence of new professions
that are essential to the construction of AI, but could lead to greater job
insecurity. For example, all activities aimed at making machines learn(facial identification, for example) and which require the mobilization ofworkers for piecemeal tasks.
In this context, it is interesting to look at the case of Japan because theintroduction of new technologies is presented there as a solution to labour
shortages; yet, at the same time, this will destroy jobs massively in sectorsthat are currently seeing overemployment. In addition, the organizationalchange linked to new technologies has not been commensurate withthe efforts made in research and development. The impact of innovation
on productivity is limited, and productivity gains result more from workorganization than from automation.
At the crossroads of labour economics, industrial economics andinnovation economics, these questions will be examined in a research
project that is part of a collaboration with Keio University and its Panel
Data Research Center, chaired by Prof. Isamu Yamamoto. The first key
event of this project was a study day organized in Paris on November
20, 2019. During this event, French and Japanese researchers fromvarious institutions met to brainstorm how technological innovation cancontribute to improving well-being at work.
This piece was written in collaboration with César Castellvi (CCJ-CRJ,EHESS).

TESTIMONIAL
French-German Dialogue on JapanThe FFJ team and the JDZB are joining forces in a Franco-German dialogue on Japan, based on artificialintelligence. Werner Pascha (University of Duisburg-Essen, JDZB) looks back at the first part of this dialogue,
which deals with autonomous vehicles and is available online.
Autonomous driving (AD) has become an
extremely important topic for the future ofJapan, as well as France and Germany.
While there are many public events anddiscussions on the future of power generationfor vehicles (electricity, hydrogen, etc.), theissue of autonomous driving seems to still
be somewhat overlooked. Yet, the consequences of AD are just as
far‑reaching as power generation. It will not only affect car construction
and design, but it will also have an impact on how public space isorganized. Moreover, AD is impossible without a sea change in datatransmission, which also raises serious questions about data security.
Last, but not least, there is a highly sensitive ethical dimension: whoshould AD artificial intelligence “save” in case of an impending accident?
The questions – and answers – on AD are not necessarily the samein different countries. They depend on the capacities and businessenvironment of the various countries, but they also depend on thesocio-psychological profile of various regions, to what extent people will
accept artificial intelligence solutions in existentially relevant contexts,
such as AD. There is a lot to learn from these different perspectives.
For topics such as these, the Japanisch-Deutschen Zentrums Berlin(JDZB) and the Fondation France-Japon de l’EHESS (FFJ) inaugurated
the “French-German Dialogue on Japan,” which brings together trilateralperspectives, research findings, and hands-on experience from panelists
from academia, public administration and business. Our first, virtual
event on AD was held on October 8, 2020, with JDZB Berlin as themain co-organizer.
It will not be possible to summarize the many contributions and thescope of the arguments presented at the event in this brief account.YetI will try. The keynote speaker, Professor Fujimoto Takahiro from theUniversity of Tokyo, a world-leading authority on automobile manufacturingsystems, pointed out that there are three important levels of analysis:“ground” issues of motor vehicle construction, “low‑sky” issues ofvehicle-to-vehicle communication and infrastructure, and “high-sky”
issues of vehicle‑to‑internet connections, including digital platforms
and infotainment.
The first session, on “Regulating Autonomous Driving”, focused on theviews of automobile manufacturers and other players on regulation andpolicy related to AD. Among the highlights, Mr. Ota Hiroki of the Japan
Automobile Manufacturers Association (European Office) explained
JAMA’s Mobility Vision, which sets 2030 as a critical milestone for
proposing solutions related to priority issues, such as AD, electrification,and connectivity.
The second session, on “Autonomous Driving and Society”, compared
how autonomous driving is received and accepted in the three societies inquestion. What attitudes and preferences can be found in the Japanese,
French and German public? What opportunities and risks do citizens
perceive with regards to autonomous driving? I will mention two important
positions (amongst many): Professor Brice Laurent of CSI Mines ParisTech
presented the challenge of modelling the social impact of AD andhow it relates to the possibility of experiments, while Professor Armin
Grunwald of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Head of Technology
Assessment of the German Federal Parliament pointed out structuralissues in the political debate in Germany related to AD, including therole of the German Ethics Council (Deutscher Ethikrat).
Participants agreed that despite this being “only” a virtual conference dueto COVID-19, the discussions among the panelists and with the wider
public participating in the online meeting room were very stimulating.
The organizers agreed to hold another such dialogue event in 2021 ona different topic, hopefully in situ in Paris.
Werner Pascha
Mercator School of Management and Institute of East Asian Studies,
University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), JDZBCERCLE DE LA FFJ
The Cercle de la FFJ brings together visiting researchers, prize winners and the FFJ’s closest collaborators.
In this section, you will find interviews to introduce the members of this Cercle.

Masayo Fujimoto

Ryo Kambayashi

Professor at Doshisha University
Masayo Fujimoto is the scientific supervisor of
the FFJ’s theme 3 “Thinking Innovation throughthe Interactions between Science, Culture andSociety”. She is Professor of social sciences atthe Doshisha University (Kyoto), and specialistof sociology of work, professions, and social
mobility and institutional change.

Professor at Hitotsubashi University
Ryo Kambayashi is Professor at the Institute ofEconomic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
His research field is labour economics, lawand economics, Japanese economic history
and institutional economics. He is associateresearcher of the FFJ’s theme 5 “Inequality &Social Policies”.

Read the interview

Read the interview

A LOOK BACK AT
Round Table on the Book Innovation Beyond Technology
A round table devoted to the book Innovation
Beyond Technology - Science for Society andInterdisciplinary Approaches, organised by
FFJ in collaboration with the Institut francilien
recherche innovation société (Institute for
Research and Innovation in Society-IFRIS)
and the Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation(Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation-i3, UMR9217), took place on 19 October 2020 at EHESS.
This round table was the first ‘hybrid’ eventorganised by FFJ, bringing some 50 participants
together both physically and virtually in the EHESS lecture hall.
Speakers and book contributors: Sébastien Lechevalier (economist andprofessor at EHESS), Sandra Laugier (philosopher and professor at
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Brice Laurent (sociologistat CSI Mines Paristech).
Panellists: Franck Aggeri (professor of management at CSI Mines
ParisTech), Matthieu Montalban (University of Bordeaux) and Anne
Rasmussen (historian and professor at EHESS).

Round table report
Sandra Laugier started by reminding us that innovation has long beenpresented as always positive, but that current technological scandals
are forcing us to reflect on the notion of scientific and social progress.
“All research must be based on human well-being, which is often difficult
to define. Citizens’ competence to intervene on topics that concern themseems obvious, but the outlook of this book seems to suggest that it isperhaps not so obvious after all,” she concluded.
In turn, Brice Laurent pointed out that the book takes the issue ofinequality created by innovation very seriously, thus highlighting one of
the main criticisms of innovation. The book describes styles of criticism
and theories of innovation that are connected to three ways of thinking
on innovation. The first sees innovation as a religion, the myths of which
need to be dismantled. The second sees innovation as a generatorof excess, often with harmful and violent consequences such as theFukushima nuclear disaster, but it also creates novelty by questioning
what is currently in place. The third sees innovation as an instrumentof public policy and corporate strategy, leading to a vision of society
in which social progress arises naturally from technological progress.
Finally, each style of innovation corresponds implicitly to a type of society.
Brice Laurent’s article on experimental forms of innovation, especiallyin urban planning, illustrates this point. “In San Francisco, there is astrong emphasis on technology, the use of big data and the democraticmode of functioning. Using data makes it possible to know how people‘think’ and to combine this thinking with systems in real time. This
form of innovation goes hand in hand with a vision of local democracy
focused on immediate implementation. Protest movements, meanwhile,
have mapped evictions caused by price hikes due to technologicaldevelopment. Criticising innovation can simply mean highlighting thecontroversies between different social projects and thus differentiating
the ways of thinking about innovations”, he explained during the roundtable discussion.
For Anne Rasmussen, this book provides an international narrativearound global issues of markets, scientific policy, research models, aswell as more local case studies, in Japan in particular. She was especiallyinterested in Sayaka Oki’s article which “analysed how the idea ofprogress was replaced by the idea of innovation, to which she assigns
a socio-political scope of social inclusion. She highlights the shift fromcumulative progress to innovation based on discontinuity and diversity.”
Franck Aggeria remarked that the book notes growing disagreement
about innovation and offers a criticism of the technological lens andits associated imagery. According to him, however, the book does notinclude enough non-technological experiments, even though many
examples are mentioned in the introduction.
Matthieu Montalban questioned the term ‘innovation’ and wondered
whether it should not be replaced by ‘social change’ instead. Brice
Laurent concluded that discussions around the term ‘innovation’ dependon how the term is perceived and its corresponding society.
The purpose of this book, as Sébastien Lechevalier pointed out during
this panel, is to analyse the conditions under which a society moves frombeing techno-centric to human-centric, to discuss the non-technologicalaspects of innovation, and to go from seeing innovation as a tool forcompetitiveness to seeing innovation as a source of well-being. Thus,
the book has a tendency to emphasise the role of social sciences andhumanities in innovation, which is never exclusively technological, butalso social.
Our research on social innovation will continue in 2021 with the creationof a three-year international research team and a research programme on
care-led innovation, both mentioned on the first page of this newsletter.

The round table report was written by Catherine Gayda, i3’s scientificmediator.
Watch the round table (in French)

Editorial board: Céline Caliaro, Jodie Cazau, Sébastien LechevalierTranslation: Aurélia Martin
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